Infancy part 2

Question 1

What is obesity in infants defined as?

Answer 1

a weight that is 20% more then the average for infants who are the same height as the obese infant

Question 2

How does obesity in infants relate to obesity in childhood and adulthood- specify what the trends with obesity in childhood in Canada are as well

Answer 2

Obesity in infancy is not seen as a clear predictor of obesity in adulthood whereas obesity at the age of 6 is. However infant obesity will create fat cells on the individual which will remain throughout life (they will become deflated when the person loses weight) and having more make weight gain easier - however if the rate at which they are popping up slows to a normal one the individual will not have excess fat cells and therefore will not have an extra risk of weight gain.
It makes sense that obesity in infancy is not a predictor of obesity in adulthood as in certain stages infants primarily gain nutrients tfrom breast milk - since breast milk is only consumed for a short period of time in an individuals life the behaviours associated with it are not likely to be translated elsewhere and therefore it likely will not impact adulthood behaviors. Additionally since infants are born at different lengths and reach the age of eating solid food at different times an infant could have been born longer but take longer to eat solid food making them lighter then most of their height and therefore causing some skewing in the data, vice versa could also be true about an infant born short who starts eating solid food earlier.
Obesity at the age of 6 is associated with obesity in adulthood This makes sense as obesity at age 6 would likely be caused by food addiction or compulsive eating which are behaviors that the individual will have the opportunities to do in adulthood unlike with breastfeeding.
330% of children aged 5-17 in canada are classified as overweight or obese this represents a tripling of childhood obesity/overweightness rates in the last 30 years
(individuals are classified as overweight if their BMI is greater then or equal to 25, and individuals are classified as obese if their BMI is greater then or equal to 30)

Question 3

What are some factors that increase the chances of infant obesity?

Answer 3

Having a mother who is obese, diabetic or over the age of 35

Question 4

What does the world health organization and the canadian pediatric society advise in regards to breast feeding?

Answer 4

Both the world health organization and the canadian pediatric society assert that breast feeding is both better for the infant and the mother then feeding through formula. The world health organization and the canadiaan pediatric society both advise that if mothers can (some mothers can not because either their infants can not latch onto their breasts or they do not lactate) they should breast feed their infants for the first six months of their life.

Question 5

What are the benefits of breast feeding for the infant?

Answer 5

Decrease the risk of developing infections in the respiratory system, gastoral intestinal tract and middle ear (maybe less likely to encounter bacteria in the breast milk then formula, additionally this is confirmed that it is easier for the infant to digest - this could be why the risk of gastoral intestinal infections decreases (makes sense that evolutionarily we would be best adapted for our mothers milk) and bc if the infant is sick the nutrients in the breast milk can change in order to give the infant more of what it will need to get better- this could be why the risk of respritory infections decreases ) and decreases the risk of type 1 diabetes, infant obesity (maybe can better access nutrients from it so they do not need to consume as much) and sudden infant death syndrome.

Question 6

What are the benefits of breast feeding for the mother?

Answer 6

Breast feeding decreases the risk of breast cancer, type 1 diabetes and ovarian cancer in mothers

Question 7

What are some problems with the conclusions of research about breast feeding?

Answer 7

Can not ethically randomly assign mothers to a breast feeding or non breastfeeding group so the data could be caused by a hidden variable. Ie women of lower socioeconomic status may be less likley to be able to breastfeed because of an environmental agent that might also increase their risk of ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes, and uterine cancer aas well as their infants risk of developing an infection in the middle of the ear, the respritory system and the gastoral intestinal tract as well as increase the risk of type 1 diabetes and sudden infant death syndrome.

Question 8

What are some findings about the properties of breast milk

Answer 8

the percentage of different nutrients in breast milk will change if the infant is sick to give them more of the nutrients that they need to recover
the percentage of the different nutrients in breast milk also changes over time to give the infant more of what they need for a specific stage
breast milk is easier to digest then formula and cows milk
breast milk reduces infant wheezing (does this occur bc helps them recover more quickly from illness?)
it is not determined if breast feeding improves cognitive development or that of the cardiovascular system.

Question 9

When are mothers advised to not breastfeed

Answer 9

If they have active tuberculosis, if they are HIV positive or have another disease that could be passed through the breast milk, and if they are taking a drug that could be unsafe for the infant

Question 10

How does/does breast feeding impact the likelihood of the development of asthma

Answer 10

A study found that the infants who were only breastfed and had longer breastfeeding sessions were less likely to develop asthma when they were under the age of 7, however there is no conclusive results on the matter yet

Question 11

What are the recommendations for introducing infants to solid food

Answer 11

Introduce one food made from a few different ingredient at a time (and give them only this food for a while) rather then giving them food with lots of different ingredients or multiple types of different foods at a time. This is advised bc it allows the parents to determine what food created an infants response (if infant is served a food with lots of different ingredients and the infant cries you do not know what they didn’t like but if it only has a few then you have a better idea) and bc if an allergic reaction occurs this will give them a better idea of what exactly caused it.
usually first cereal is introduced, then strained fruits, and then vegetables and then other types of food (follows a meal pattern - breakfast foods first and then more lunchy/dinnery foods later)
Rich and iron filled solid food are reccommended to be started at 6 months, however even when solid food is being eaten breastfeeding can still occur (it is up to the mother to decide when she wants to stop breastfeeding)

Question 12

What is weaning and what are trends related to when it starts and finishes

Answer 12

weaning is the gradual stopping of breastfeeding
weaning begins when formula or solid food is introduced and ends when breastfeeding completly stops
the main reason for weaning is that the mother believes she no longer has enough breastmilk to properly nourish the child
many women keep breastfeeding when the child is 2 or 3
63% of canadian women reported that they kept breastfeeding their infant after 3 months

Question 13

what is sensation and what is perception

Answer 13

the energy from the environment interacting with our sensory receptors
our interpretation of the result of energy from our environment interacting with our sensory receptors

Question 14

Where are our sensory receptors

Answer 14

In our eyes, ears, nostrils, skin and tongue

Question 15

Describe the process of hearing

Answer 15

hearing - waves of air that have a certain rythmn are collected by the outer ear and then conducted through the inner ear and the cochlea where they transition from being mechanical to electrical energy that then activates the auditory nerve which brings the information to the brain
outer ear makes sense is the outermost part and therefore the first part that mechanical energy interacts with
then the energy vibrates the smaller bones of the inner ear since they are smaller the force will be greater so it will be amplified which amplifies it and eventually it will cause the movement of liquid in the cochlea - like conch shell (shell snail shell- spiral) can hold fluid just like the cochlea, which causes hairs to move and sends electrical impulses

Question 16

describe the process of vision

Answer 16

involves rays of light meeting the eye, being focused on the retina where they activate rods (used for seeing black and white) and cons (used for seeing color) which then convert the light into electrical signals which activate the optic nerve which in turn takes this info to the brain

Question 17

Describe the ecological perspective (and perspectives based on this approach) on perception

Answer 17

While if we are in the same environment as others we will get similar info from it (things like our exact position in it vs someone else and slight differences in our sensory receptors as the result of use might make the information that we get slightly different) as them, however we might differ in what we choose to focus on which is where perception becomes our interpretation/unique to us. From an ecological perspective perception exists to cause us to interact with our environment.
For the embodied perspective
embodied like empowered if you are empowered you feel confident enough in your thoughts to take some sort of action the embodied approach is simmilar it holds that thoughts and mental processes as a whole only exist for empowerment (to cause us to create actions)
art glenberg - cognition only exists to allow us to take action, you can only take action if you have a nervous system and the purpose of the nervous system is to drive action
art - represents perception of the world and action - creation, illustrates the purpose that glenberg believes perception and mental processes as a whole (cogniton) are for- taking action

Question 18

What are affordances

Answer 18

the typical meaning of afford - to be able to purchase something demonstrates one context of affordances - do you have the capabilities to interact with this object where the interaction is purchasing. Affordances mean overall what ways in which an individual is capable of interacting with an object
ex if there is a one year old alone in a room where there is a regular sized plastic chair it’s affordances (the ways in which it can interact with the object) include likely walking up to the chair, sitting underneath the chair, touching the chair and putting their mouth on the chair. The one year old likely does not have the affordance to sit up on the chair or pick up the chair.
When determining what the possible affordances an agent has you need to
look at the general conditions of the envrionment (what is it like to be in: ie I am capable of probably running at a certain maximum speed but if it is super hot in the environment that maximum speed that I am capable of might be less for less long before I get to warm)
what is the stimuli in the environment - what objects can you interact with in the environment
the agent - the current state as well as developmental state of the agent will impact what actions they are capable of doing at a given time

Question 19

What is the range that newborns vision are estimated to fall into on the snellen chart and why do they have this range?

Answer 19

newborns scores range from 20/200 to 20/600
snellen chart
a score of 20/200 means that the maximum distance that an object can be away from a newborn with the newborn still seeing it is 20 feet whereas the maximum distance that the same object can be away from an adult (with standard vision) with the adult still being able to see it clearly is 200 feet.
Newborns have less ability to see objects that are far away or small bc the nerves, muscles and lens in their eyes are still developing

Question 20

How do scores on the snellen chart change

Answer 20

At birth the scores of the snellen chart are estimated to be around 20/200 to 20/600 whereas once the newborn reaches 6 months (half of a year their average score becomes half of an adults) they score 20/40 meaning that they can see a specific object at a maximum distance of 20 feet wheras adults with average vision have that same object have a maximum distance of 40 feet away from them before they can no longer see it clearly
snellen chart like smell en - feet are smelly, the snellen chart compares what the maximum number of feet an individual can be away from a specific object while still seeing it clearly with the maximum number of feet on average people can be away from that same object while still being able to see it clearly

Question 21

What are trends related to looking at faces with infants

Answer 21

12 - the hour 12 (pm) marks that the day is the majority completed (we are overhalf way through the day). Infants spend the majority of their time looking at their primary caregiver - this occurs as early as 12 hours after they are born.
at 3 months infants can match a voice to a face, tell the difference between male and female voices and determine which faces belong to individuals of the same ethnicity as them and which do not
some people debate if newborns can see color before they reach three months old - currently it is believed that they can however it is just more muted.

once they are 3 months old infants have improved color vision, can differentiate between gender, can differentiate between ethnicity and can match voices.

Question 22

Describe what Fance asserts about infant visual preferences

Answer 22

Fance like france
saw that thing about labobos aying french children when they scrape their knee and at first you thought the joke was just that french children’s faces look like the labobo’s face (a non human face) - like how Fance asserts that infants perfer to look at human faces over faces with scrambled features that are not characteristic of humans (non - human faces)
laboobos made with a specific pattern - children prefer to look at displays that follow a specific pattern over ones that do not

Question 23

what does perceptual constancy mean

Answer 23

perceptual constancy means that you can keep the same perception (constant) of an object even when sensory info related to that object changes. Having percpetual constancy makes it so that you can see an object have certain properties altered while still keeping the same overarching interpretation of that object - ie if you see a dog stuffy and it is front facing you and then it moves so it is further away and sideways facing you your perception that the object is the same dog stuffy remains constant (you do not think it is a new object since the distance it is from you and its orientation changed).
Infants have perceptual constancy - this is important because it means that they do not believe that objects constantly dissappear and have new objects rematerialize in the world as well as so that they can consistently identify their primary caregiver/thoose around them when their facial expression and positions relative to them change.

Question 24

What is size constancy and what is the course of its development in infants

Answer 24

The knowledge that an object remains the same even as the retinal image we have of it changes as we move closer/further from (although our retinal image of the object will be larger or smaller depending on how far away we are from the object this does not mean that the object itself is growing or shrinking)
infants begin to develop this ability at 3 months however it only becomes fully developed at 10-11 months

Question 25

Describe shape constancy and how it develops in infants

Answer 25

shape constancy refers to the ability to recognize that an object remains the same even when we look at it from different vantage points causing for our perception of its shape to change infants have shape constancy if the shape of the object is not too irregular

Question 26

Describe infants perception of occluded objects

Answer 26

occluded - o like out of sight also sounds kind of like seccluded like out of the way/not within full sight occluded constancy refers to infants ability to recognize that an object is still the same object/whole even when it is partially out of sight. At 2 months old infants can track objects that are partially covereds movements when they are 3-5 months old and are better at predicting where an object will reappear if it is covered up gradually then if it is covered up quickly (so still moves while covered up but it being covered gradually maybe allows them to get a better sense that it is the same object just with something being put overtop of it/occuluded constancy occurs until its all the way covered/ then when it is covered up instantly)

Question 27

Describe the visual cliff experiment for 6-12 month olds

Answer 27

Gibson - Gib like give way - the platform will appear to gib way (go off onto a cliff) but I still encourage my son to walk across it gibson and walks had infants ontop of a glass case that had a plateform that was level with the glass then dropped lower at a certain point and had their caregivers encourage the infants to walk across. When the majority pf infants refused to walk across Gibson and Walks concluded that this reflected that they could tell the platform dropped off and therefore had depth perception. Critics suggested that this experiment instead of reflecting depth perception might reflect social referencing (how an infant looks to caregivers for behavioral cues) or fear of hieghts (which could make it so the infant is to scared of falling to move much at all and is therefore unlikely to leave their original position)

Question 28

How was the visual cliff expriment changed for 2-4 month olds

Answer 28

Even though the plateform will appear to gib way (visual cliff experiment) I will still enourage my son to move across it or i will place him side where it appears to gib way since he cant walks yet gibson and walkes visual cliff experiment since 2-4 month olds cant crawl gibson and walkes tested their depth perception by monitoring their heartrate while placing them on the side where the plateform was level with the glass and the side where the plateform was lower. Gibson and walke compared the heartrates for each and found that 2-4 month olds had higher heart rates when they were on the the side where it looked like the plateform was much lower) suggesting that they were scared/thought they might fall which overall suggests that they could tell that the plateform under the glass had gotten lower.

Question 29

Describe the development of auditory perceptions in infants

Answer 29

In the womb infants can hear sounds that are occuring outside of the mother until they reach 2 years old babies keep becoming more and more sensitive to high and low frequency sounds then adults meanwhile being less sensitive to medium frequency sounds. at 18months infants have simmilar sound localization (refers to the ability to pinpoint where a sound is coming from) to adults

Question 30

Describe infants abilities with scent

Answer 30

at 12 -18 days old infants can recognize their mother by her scent alone study involved placing gauze pads under the armpits of adults and then exposing these gauze pads to infants after a day had passed. Found that infants who were breastfed could recognize which gauze pad had been placed under the armpit of their mother and that neither bottle or breast fed infants could recognize which gauze pad had been placed under the armpit of their father. Maybe the mothers milk provides a greater window into the scent of her body that infants who are bottle fed do not get and that neither feeding variation of infant gets from their father. (kind of makes sense that more contact with the bodily secretion from one individual would make you better at recognizing other types of bodily secretions from them)

Question 31

Describe infants abilities with taste

Answer 31

show disgust for bitter tastes and happiness at sweet tastes. This might have an evolutionary benefit as it makes them predisposed to like breast milk which is sweet

Question 32

Describe infants abilities with touch and pain

Answer 32

distress is defined as the infant changing the intensity of the tone at which they are crying, sweating, having an increase in heart rate or making a facial expression that suggests that they are uncomfortable if pain is present infants will show distress regardless however when they are younger there will be the longest ammount of time between the introduction of the stimulus and their reaction and this will decrease as they get older after 32 weeks infants can feel throughout their whole body - infants are sensitive to touch at 32 weeks

Question 33

What are infants abilities with intermodal perception?

Answer 33

Intermodal perception inter like intertwined and modal like mode - mode of perception intermodal perception refers to how infants are able to intertwine information from different modes of perception to get a complete sense of a stimulus, they show that they are some what capable of this when they are first born and have improved a lot due from expereience based learning by the time they are 1 year old

Question 34

What is the name for people who believe that the development of perception is caused by nature and what is the name for people who believe that the development of perception is caused by nurture

Answer 34

nativists - native like you were originally there so if something is native to you it was original to you - it was there since you were born. Nativists believe that features are primarily caused by nature empricisits - think empirical evidence - refers to evidence that can be externally validated - external - empiricists believe that our features are primarily caused by factors external from us - our nurture.

Question 35

What were piagets main questions about development

Answer 35

pia like pia I know and get me and pia would get the same capabilities around the same age and obviously in her cause she would then get additional complicated arts related ones pia get would focus on how me and pia would make the same basic mistakes and then get the same basic skills at the same age (he was interested in how children make the same perceptual mistakes at the same age and move on past these mistakes at the same age- how development of perception occurs in universal stages) and the forces that caused them to differ (how our more complex abilities for thought - beyond just interpreting what is there - but rather features like making decisions caused us to purse different paths) piaget interested in how development in perception occurs in universal stages (ie experiment where children will see water from a short wide glass being poured into a tall narrow glass and be asked to report if the ammount of water in the tall narrow glass is the same as the amount that was in the short wide glass- children 3-4 will say there is more water in the tall narrow glass bc the waterline is higher whereas 7 year olds will correctly report that it is the same ammount) interested in how we go from interpreting what is in the world to more complex cognitive processes - ie how we ascribe importance to information, how we organize information, etc wanted to find a way to measure the cognitive processes in infants

Question 36

what was piagets beliefs about schemas and schemes

Answer 36

schemes - a specific set of procedures for gathering information about the world piaget believed that we are born with basic schemes based on sensory information that become more suited for our environment after we use them ex. we might have the scheme that when we see a new object we put it in our mouth to try to gain info about it- this scheme would likely involve a procedure of us moving towards the object, reaching out for the object, grasping it, and then bringing it to our mouth. (this set of steps we need to follow to get info about the object is called a scheme). The more we use a scheme the more we learn what objects this scheme works well for and what objecits it does not (which will cause us to develop or use different schemes in the presence of these objects). schemas - a think a as in grade - what we hand in to hopefully get an a is all the information we have organized which is different from the procedure we did to get this info (the scheme). Schema's are all the traits that we ascribe to an object based on the information that we have gathered through schemes.

Question 37

What is sensory motor intelligence

Answer 37

Sensory motor intelligence refers to the information we get from basic inborn schemes (procedures that we instinctually use to get information about our world/interacting with objects) - these include sucking, grasping, looking and listening and how that information causes us to refine our schemes through accommodation.

Question 38

what are assimilation, accommodation and equilibration

Answer 38

Assimilation - to assimilate something you group it as the same as other objects - you do not see it as standing out at all. In the context of schemes assimilation refers to when you assume that the object will be suited for the same procedure of information gathering (schemes) as previous objects (so you are assimilating that object- you are making it in your mind the same as other objects). Ie you see a beetle and you know that you have gained information about blocks before by picking the up and sucking on them so you assimilate the beetle (you make it the same as the block in your mind) and use the same scheme to gather information about it. Accommodation - accommodation refers to when you change something to make it suited for the specific needs of something. When accommodation occurs with schemes it refers to when we change our scheme so that it now better matches the traits of something. Ie if we pick up the beetle and put it in our mouth it will taste bad causing us to change our scheme to accomodate this info ie we will decide that our default procedure to find out info about our world is to place objects in our mouth unless that object resembles a beetle. equilibration - like equilibrium- a state of stability. Refers to when our schemes are stable at a given moment- we are not currently editing them bc they appear to be sufficient for navigating our world.

Question 39

What was the first sub stage of the sensory motor stage

Answer 39

substage ends at 1 month, involves infants mostly paying attention to what is going on in the immediate present and involves them using their inborn/reflexive schemes (sucking, grasping, looking and listening) substage 1-4 months primary circular reactions involves simple repetitive actions being tested by the infant through the infant doing them to themselves, (so 1st person means of gathering info about the impact of the action to an environment (all info comes internally rather then from trying to read the external environment)). Ie if an infant sucks on their thumb and it feels good they will be more likely to do it again. A circle is always whole in this stge infants also work more on being able to use the whole of their sources of information together (ie trying to mix looking and listening) substage 3: 4-8 months goes until 8 if you say external validation plays a big role in this stage secondary circular actions secondary like second person - get information from second person, just get to see what happens in the external environment rather then what the other person thinks directly of it. Involves infants evaluating their actions based on the reactions of their caregivers rather just themselves. Ie if an infant coes and their caregiver smiles they might be more likely to coe in the future bc they want their caregiver to smile again. substage 4 8-12 months secondary scheme stage secondary as in schemes have a second reason for developing schemes - don't just use schemes to get information also use schemes to get a specific desired outcome. Start to understand cause and effect- can engage in means to an end behavior ie if they want toy a but it is behind toy b they can move toy b to get toy a demonstrating a specific procedure they used (scheme) to get to a specific end. substage 5: 12-18 months people count down from 5 in response to being secondary teritary schemes involves the infant testing out different changes to established schemes ie know if they let go of a block it will fall but might try at different hieghts to see ow the sound it makes when it falls/how it falls and where it lands potentially changes substage 6: 18-24 months beginning of mental representations infants can now use words or gestures as symbols for objects (once infants are 2 they can usually talk in a way that represents how they feel- they now know the meanings of some words and therefore can understand the concept of representing objects with symbols and do this themselves). They can also do deferred imitations (imitate an action a while after it has occurred)

Question 40

Describe the process in which infants get object permanence

Answer 40

At 2 months infants start to display signs of object permanence at 6-8 months infants look over the side of their cribs for objects that have fallen - (this is significant because it shows that they do not think it has vanished entirely - or else what would be the point of looking for it) and they understand that ocular objects (objects that are partially covered from view) have not been divided into smaller pieces. at 8-12 months infants will reach for objects that are entirely covered by something else proving that they know the object still exists even if they can not see the entire object

Question 41

What are some criticisms of Piagets theory?

Answer 41

Piaget might have underestimated the cognitive abilities of infants cognitive development is more fluid then piaget theorized - ie might have multiple skills developing at the same time rather then them being divided up into separate/strict sections Piagets means of measuring object permanence did not allow for younger infants to demonstrate object permanence - piaget measured object permanence by having infants reach grabbing concealed behind something however infants before 7-8 months can not grab yet - when infants object permanence is measured through tracking their eye movements (seeing if they continue to look at the spot where an object has been concealed- suggesting they know the object still exists behind what is concealing it)

Question 42

Describe the information processing approach

Answer 42

Involves examining different numerical measures of different cognitive abilities- does not split having abilities into stages of presence/absense like piaget but rather sees it as abilities improving based on the numerical measures associated with them.

Question 43

What are the different stages of memory?

Answer 43

encoding - placing information in memory storage - holding information in memory retrieval - taking information out of storage

Question 44

Describe the infant memory experiment

Answer 44

Had infants have a mobile overtop of them that was connected to their leg using a ribbon that tied their leg to the mobile- this made it so that if the infant kicked their leg the mobile would move. Then after a gap in time they placed the infant under either the same mobile or a different one, found if it was the same mobile the infant would kick but if it was a different one the infant would not suggesting that they were kicking because they remembered that this impacted the mobile rather then because they had a tendancy to do so in the presence of mobiles. Found at 2 months the maximum ammount of time between when they were first shown the mobile and when they were reintorduced to it that could pass with them still trying to kick to move it was a few days whereas for infants aged 6 months the ammount of time was 3 weeks.

Question 45

What is implicit and explicit memory and how does their development in infants vary

Answer 45

implicit memory - memory of how to do a specific procedure that is automatic involves the cerebellum and brain stem implicit memories we do not know the source of explicit memory - a memory of an experience involves the hippocampus in the experiment- where infants memory was measured based on determining the maximum gap in time that could occur between when they were introduced to a mobile that was attached to their leg by a string (so they could move it by kicking) and when they would kick their legs upon reintroduction to it was- involves implicit memory. Around 6-12 months months the ability to form implicit memories starts to occur due to the hippocampus and the cerebral coretex (specifically the frontal lobes) starting to mature. The capacity for explicit memory continues to improve once the individual reaches 2 years of age as the hippocampus and the cerebral coretex (specifically the frontal lobe) continue to mature. Infantile amnesia - the tendancy for people to not remember things that occured within the first 3 years of their lives is explained due to the prefrontal lobes being in the early stage of development at this time.