Developmental Psychology: Exam 2 Flashcards

Front 1

Reflexes

Back 1

*An involuntary response to external stimulation*

-Triggered by specific stimuli
-Survival implications
-Precursors for later voluntary movement
-Insight into nervous sys. health
-Permanent or temporary

ex: Eye blink, palmar grasp, sucking response

Front 2

Postural Control - Motor Milestones

Back 2

-Head upright & stable (2 mo)

-Sitting w/o support (6 mo)

-Stands alone (11 mo)

Front 3

Locomotion - Motor Milestones

Back 3

-Rolls over (3 mo)

-Crawls, creeps (7 mo)

-Walks alone (12 mo)

-Walks up steps (17 mo)

-Walks down stairs, alternating (4-5 yrs)

-Gallops/skips (4-5 yrs)

Front 4

Manual Control - Motor Milestones

Back 4

-Grasps objects (4 mo)

-Pincer grasp (9 mo)

-Attempt to use spoon/fork (15 mo)

-Eats w/ spoon (2-3 yrs)

-Cuts paper w/ scissors (3-4 yrs)

-Eats w/ fork (4-5 yrs)

-Ties shoes (6-7 yrs)

Front 5

Infant State

Back 5

Recurring pattern of arousal in the newborn, ranging from alert/vigorous/wakeful activity to quiet, regular sleep

Front 6

Infant Auditory Development

Back 6

-Infants can hear before birth
-Can hear all sounds in all languages, diminishes in 1st yr

-Sound localization = locating sound in space (will search @ 4 mo)

Front 7

Colic

Back 7

A prolonged period of unexplained crying by an infant

Front 8

Infant Development of Taste & Smell

Back 8

- Babies prefer mother's scent

- Taste develops prenatally

- Taste preferences devel. early
--> Amniotic fluid has diff tastes (prefer own)
--> Breast milk has flavor

Front 9

Cat in the Hat Study - Decasper & Spence (1986)

Back 9

- Mothers read "The Cat in the Hat" to fetuses 2x/day for last 6.5 weeks of pregnancy
-Newborns could suck one way to listen to mother's voice recording of "Cat in the Hat" or another way for a different book
-Babies preferred listening to the book they were exposed to prenatally

Front 10

Sound Localization

Back 10

Babies look towards the direction of a sound

-Develops at 4 months

Front 11

Infant Development of Touch

Back 11

- Pain develops @ birth, prenatally (Changes in med. procedures)

- Mouth, palms, feet most sensitive to touch

- Babies sensitive to hot/cold

Front 12

Infant Development of Vision

Back 12

- Can detect brightness, movement
- Can visually track an object

- Preference for faces
-->Eyes & internal features = more attention
-->Prefer mom's face
-->Learning experiences in 1st days after birth may influence preferences
-->1-yr olds prefer attractive faces

Front 13

3 Aspects of Infant Vision

Back 13

1) Visual Acuity (Clarity)
- Poor, can't perceive whole forms from far away
- Elements of complex patterns can attract attention

2) Color Perception
- Limited color vision
- Color distinction after 3 mo

3) Depth Perception
- Rely on depth/distance cues available to each eye independently
- Eye coordination @ 3-5 mo
- Improves rapidly (adult acuity by 6-12 mo)

Front 14

Depth Perception & Locomotion Study (Bertenthal & Campos, 1994)

Back 14

- Prelocomotor vs. Postlocomotor
-Use of visual cliff
-HR measured (decelerates in a state of non fearful attentiveness, accelerates as a defensive response)
-All infants showed evidence for depth perception on deep side, but only locomotor infants had fear-related cardiac acceleration in response to heights
- Walker experience = wariness of heights

Front 15

Stereoscopic Vision

Back 15

Sense of a 3rd spatial dimension (depth), produced by brain's fusion of the separate images contributed by each eye

Front 16

Visual Cliff

Back 16

Apparatus that tests an infant's depth perception by using patterned materials and an elevated glass platform to make it appear that one side of the platform is several feet lower than the other

Front 17

Intermodal Perception

Back 17

Use of sensory info from more than one modality to identify a stimulus and make sense of it

The identification of a stimulus already identified by means of one modality by use of another modality
ex: vision & hearing
ex: smooth vs. knobby pacifier

*Babies born w/ intermodal perception

Front 18

Habituation-Dishabituation Paradigm

Back 18

-Present 1 stimulus repeatedly
-Visual fixation = interest
-Initial interest fades w/ time & infant becomes bored/familiar to stimulus
-New stimulus = Increased interest

Dishabituation = Infant recognizes diff. bet. new and old stimulus
-Infants can differentiate @ 4mo

-Can present series of stimuli, allows to test categorization abilities

Front 19

Visual Preference Method
(aka Preferential Looking Paradigm)

Back 19

-Show 2 stimuli at same time
-Measure time of visual fixation to each
-Look at 1 longer = infant can differentiate between the two

Front 20

Methods to Study Infants

Back 20

-Habituation-Dishabituation Paradigm

-Visual Preference Method

-Operant Conditioning

-Physiological responses
--> Brain activity, stress hormones

Front 21

Classical Conditioning

Back 21

1) Conditioned stimulus (CS) elicits no rxn
2) CS and unconditioned stimulus (US) elicits unconditioned response (UR)
3) CS elicits CR

ex. Baby conditioned to fear a doctor

Front 22

Operant Conditioning

Back 22

Learning to exhibit/inhibit some behavior because of the rewarding/punishing consequences it brings

ex. Cat in the Hat study

Front 23

Cautilli, et al (2005)

Back 23

-35 wk old fetus
-Observed rate of kicking behavior over 4 successive 3-min periods

-Verbal statements combined w/ gentle touch serves as reinforcer for in utero fetus to kick

Front 24

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

Back 24

-Measures electrical output from brain

-Measures timing and rough locations of brain activity

Front 25

Glial cell

Back 25

A nerve cell that supports & protects neurons and serves to encase them in myelin sheaths

Front 26

Neuron Proliferation

Back 26

The rapid formation of neurons in the developing organism's brain

~250,000 new neurons/min during embryonic period

-Most neurons developed by 7 months gestation
-100-200 billion neurons

Front 27

Neural Migration

Back 27

The movement of neurons within the brain that ensures that all brain areas have a sufficient number of neural connections

"Always on the move"
**Absence of right #neurons in right location assoc. w/ dyslexia, schizophrenia

Front 28

Synapses

Back 28

Connection site of intercellular communication where info exchanged between neurons by means of neurotransmitters

Front 29

Synaptogenesis

Back 29

The forming of synapses

-Forms faster than neurons
-Allows for increasingly complex communication

Front 30

Neuronal Death

Back 30

Surrounding neurons die to provide more space for crucial loci of info transmission

aka Programmed Cell Death

Front 31

Synaptic Pruning

Back 31

The brain's disposal of the axons/dendrites of a neuron that isn't often stimulated

-Frees up space for new synaptic connections
-Increases efficiency & specialization
-Occurs at diff. times for diff. parts of brain

Front 32

Sequential Brain Development

Back 32

1) Motor Cortex
-Develops rapidly (reflex --> voluntary moves)
-2 mo = rooting, startle response drop out

2) Visual Cortex
-Huge proliferation bet. 4 - 12 mo
-Vision enhances, skilled at focusing on objects at diff. distances

3) Hippocampus
-Memory functions, fully functional @ 8-9 mo

4) Prefrontal Cortex
-Involved in forethought/logic
-Synaptic density devel. slower, reaches peak @1st yr

Front 33

Hemispheric Specialization

Back 33

Differential functioning of the two cerebral hemispheres
-Left hemi controls right side
-->Language, speed sounds, positive emotions
-Right hemi controls left side
-->Nonspeech sounds, negative emotions
-

Front 34

Heller, Nitschke, & Miller (1998)

Back 34

There are stable indiv. diff. in asymmetric brain activity across the lifespan

Predict important biases in emotional responsiveness to stress or challenge

Front 35

Fox & Davidson (1988)

Back 35

-Infants who cry when faced with maternal separation displayed less left, more right anterior activity than babies who were not distressed

-Adults who show greater left anterior activity report more positive affect, engage in more approach behavior, respond more intensely to positive vs negative stimuli

-Adults showing greater right anterior activity report more negative affect, engage in more avoidance behaviors, and respond more to negative vs. positive stimuli

Front 36

Brain Plasticity

Back 36

Responsiveness of neural structures & f'ns to input from the environment

-Stimulation from environment plays critical role in brain development (Improves brain's efficiency by strengthening synapses and modifying brain chemistry)

Ex: rats reared in enriched vs. impoverished environments

Front 37

Grasping Behavior

Back 37

An infant's ability to reach, grasp, & pick-up objects enables exploration and learning

Pre-Reaching: uncoordinated swipes @ objects
Directed-Reaching: 3 mo, complex/efficient pattern of reaching

*Younger & older infants show sensitivity to size/shape of objects relative to hand size

Front 38

Skills Implicated in Grasping (Bertenthal & Hofsten, 1998)

Back 38

1) Learning to control & balance neuromuscular forces
-->Ability to sit critical, 7 mo

2) Distance perception

3) Coordinating body parts

4) Mapping visual/tactile info to response patterns (visual perception)

5) Selecting hand to contact object

Front 39

Developmental Progression of Grasping

Back 39

5-6 mo: baby uses ulnar/palmar grasp to trap object size of cube against palm

7-9 mo: develops a thumb-finger pincer grasp

Front 40

Case-Smith et al. (1997)

Back 40

*Type of toy important (especially bet. transition periods)*

- Need to expose to fine motor toys
- Haptic attributes: texture, color, size, etc

Front 41

Role of Experience & Culture on Motor Development

Back 41

- More physical attention to babies = babies achieve motor milestones earlier
-Zambian babies left alone to practice motor skills = earlier devel.
-Jamaican babies motorically advanced
-Practice in motor behavior hastens walking

Front 42

Ways Locomotion Affects Other aspects of Development

Back 42

- Increased independence
- Increased parent-child interaction
- Development of fear of heights
- Can deal w/ changes in spatial orientation

Front 43

Factors Affecting Physical Growth

Back 43

1) Genetics
- Plays strong role in height & weight
- Gender during puberty

2) Environment
- Nutrition
- Psychological disorders
- Climate
- Poor caregiving
- Ethnicity

Front 44

Catch-Up Growth

Back 44

The tendency for human beings to regain a normal course of physical growth after injury or deprivation

Front 45

Differentiating Crying (Kopp)

Back 45

- Very hard to determine diff. types of cries
- Mothers can distinguish cries of own kids
- Mothers more skilled than fathers
- Parents more skilled than non-parents

Front 46

Gustafson & Harris (1990)

Back 46

Contextual Cues for Crying
- Know when child eats/naps/falls over lets you know what type of cry
- No advantage of mothers over non-mothers

*w/o contextual cues, mothers/non-parents/non-mothers can't distinguish

Front 47

3 Theories of Language Acquisition

Back 47

1) Learning View
- Skinner (Operant Learning)

2) Nativist View
- Chomsky (Inborn Universal Grammar)

3) Integrationist View
- Bruner's Lang. Acquis. Support System (LASS)

Front 48

Learning View of Language Acquisition

Back 48

Skinner - Operant Learning

Use of reinforcement, imitation to teach infant language

Front 49

Nativist View of Language Acquisition

Back 49

Chomsky - Inborn Universal Grammar

The human nervous system incorporates an innate concept of language

Kids sensitive to an environmental stimulus during a critical period for language learning

Front 50

Integrationist View of Language Acquisition

Back 50

Bruner's LASS

Language is learned in the context of spoken language, and humans are in some way biologically prepared to learn how to speak

Front 51

Bruner's Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)

Back 51

A collection of strategies & tactics that environmental influences (initially a kid's parents) provide the language-learning child

Front 52

Techniques for Language Development

Back 52

1) Non-verbal games (ex. Peekaboo)

2) Infant-Directed Speech
- Simple sentences, talk slower, high pitch

3) Expansion
- Imitate and add to a child's statement

Front 53

Pragmatics

Back 53

Study of systemic relations between language & context

Set of rules that specify appropriate language for particular social context

Front 54

Stages of Language Acquisition

Back 54

1) Cooing (1-2 mo)
2) Babbling (4 mo)
--> Canonical
--> Jargon
3) One-Word Stage (12-18 mo)
4) Two-Word Stage (18-24 mo)
5) Sentences (2 yr)

Front 55

One-Word Stage

Back 55

-Words learned slowly
-Names of things, objects
-Overextension

Front 56

Tardif (1996)

Back 56

A cultural variation exists in learning during the one-word stage of language acquisition

*Asian languages = learn verbs 1st

Front 57

Overextension

Back 57

Children overgeneralize during the one-word stage, using a single word to cover many diff. things

--> Could mean they don't understand the meaning of the word

-->--> Recognition outpaces language production

Front 58

Thompson & Chapman (1975)

Back 58

-Kids @ one-word stage asked to choose dog from a set of pics of a real dog, stuffed dog, others

--> They picked dog picture = they know what it means

-->--> Recognition outpaces language production

Front 59

Telegraphic Speech

Back 59

Two-word utterances that include only words essential to convent the speaker's intent

Front 60

Gonikoff et al. (1987)

Back 60

2 yr-old telegraphic speech speakers

Q: Do they look more at the action that's consistent w/ the audio more often than the other action?

Audio1 --> Look longer @ Visual1
Audio2 --> Look longer @ Visual2

Young kids know more than their utterances suggest; see rapid increase in vocab, devel. syntax

Front 61

Fernald et al. (1998)

Back 61

-72 infants (15 mo, 18 mo, 24 mo)
-Calculate infant's rxn time to seek correct pic

-->15 mo infants demonstrated recog. of 4 target words by looking at the correct object named, but didn't initiate gaze until the target word was spoken

-->24mo infants shift gaze to the correct object before end of the spoken word = make decisions based on incomplete acoustic information (like adults)

**Neural reorganization**

Front 62

Werker & Desjardins (1995)

Back 62

Babies are hardwired to learn any language at birth

This ability drops out @ 10 mo. when infants commit to a language

Front 63

Language Acquisition in Deaf Children

Back 63

-Similar steps
-Learn sign language faster, earlier
--> After 2yrs, differences disappear

*Motor centers of brain devel. faster than speech centers

Front 64

Metalinguistic Awareness

Back 64

Understanding that language is a rule-bound system of communicating

Front 65

Cognitive Development

Back 65

Study of how intellectual abilities and knowledge of the world change as a person grows older
-Perception
-Learning
-Memory
-Reasoning

Critical for social/emotional development

Front 66

2 Broad Approaches to Cognitive Development

Back 66

1) Quantitative (Continuous) [based on age]

2) Qualitative (Discontinuous) [based on maturity, Piaget]

Front 67

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Back 67

Constructivist View: children actively seek info and organize it into SCHEMAS

4 Stages:
1) Sensorimotor (0-2 yr)
2) Preoperational (2-7 yr)
3) Concrete Operational (7-12 yr)
4) Formal Operational (12+ yr)

Front 68

Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

Back 68

Behavioral Schemas
- Crawling, grasping, sucking, looking

Transition from basic reflexes to beginnings of symbolic thought

Object permanence develops
-8-12 mo basic understanding
-12-18 mo full understanding
*Manual search task*

Front 69

Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development

Back 69

- Emergence of symbolic representation
- Mental schemas
-Inability to think logically (animistic thinking, ego-centricism, irreversibility)

Front 70

Concrete Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

Back 70

Child is able to reason logically about materials that are physically present (no abstract thought)

Front 71

Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

Back 71

Child is capable of abstract thinking, complex reasoning, hypothesis testing

Front 72

Egocentrism

Back 72

Tendency to view world from one's own perspective and to have difficulty seeing things from another's viewpoint

Front 73

Animistic Thinking

Back 73

The attribution of life to inanimate objects

Front 74

Reversibility

Back 74

Understanding that steps of a procedure or operation can be reversed and that the original state of the object can be obtained

*During preoperational stage, children do not have conservation of number/volume/mass

Front 75

Three-Mountain Task

Back 75

Piaget's test for egocentrism

-Child asked to describe what the doll sees from another side of the 3 mountains
-Preoperational kids can't consistency identify doll's view

Front 76

Baillargeon' Object Permanence

Back 76

-Habituation-Dishabituation Paradigm
-Previous Problem: infants could not motorically move objects

*Object permanence appears as early as 3 months

*Car and block rolling down ramp study

Front 77

Violation of Expectation (Baillargeon)

Back 77

- Introduce impossible event
- Object floating in space

*Location & degree of support important

-Initial concept: Support or no support
-Infants identify discrete variable (locus of support), then continuous variable (amount of contact)

Front 78

Dual Representation

Back 78

- Symbolic understanding, must mentally represent both the symbol itself and its relation to the referent

- Idea that objects have both a concrete and abstract nature (representational insight)

Front 79

Factors Affecting Representational Insight

Back 79

- Degree of similarity bet. symbol & referent
- Degree of info provided about symbol-referent relation
- Amount of prior experience child has w/ symbols

**Depends on particular stimuli and situation

Front 80

Credible Shrinking Room (DeLoache)

Back 80

-3 yr olds performed well, 2.5 yr olds performed poorly
-Younger children do better if the salience of the model is decreased (can't physically touch it = more symbol-like)

-Non-symbolic task --> Shrunken room didn't represent larger room, IT IS the larger room

Front 81

Impact of Culture on Cognition

Back 81

- Euro-American kids describe memories in relation to own feelings & experiences
- Chinese kids emphasize social roles & responsibilities
- Siblings & parenting style play role in developmental process
-Theory of mind develops around the world

Front 82

Theory of Mind ("False Belief" Task)

Back 82

The understanding of the mind and how it works

-Tell a child a story, ask what a character in the story thinks
(Younger children respond based on personal beliefs)

ex. Max's candy is hidden in the cupboard.
3 yr-olds say candy is hidden in the drawer, b/c that's where their candy is hidden

Front 83

Evidence of Reversibility

Back 83

Conservation of Volume: when a screen is placed in front of the short and tall glasses, children were able to conserve
--> Distracting changes in height/width of water column not visible to kids