Infant Perception

Question 1

Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale

Answer 1

To check;
- reflexes
- muscle tone
- state changes
- responsiviness to stimuli

Question 2

Neonatal ICU Network Neruobehavioral Scale

Answer 2

• New born risk for developmental problems
• Low birth weight, preterm deliver, substance exposure

Question 3

What is method used to study infant perception, attention and memory?

Answer 3

• Habituation; repetitive observation of the same stimuli results in loss of interest
• Recovery; a change in the environment, new interest

Question 4

How does habitutation work?

Answer 4

1- Getting used to seeing the stimulus - habituation
2- Focusing on the novelty - the new stimulus
3 - Focus on the familiar stimulus

• Babies have a preference for familiarity over novelty

Question 5

What are babies more attentive to?

Answer 5

• Movements
• Remember actions better than the person doing it

Question 6

Newborn Imitation

Answer 6

• Innate ability
  Some claims it declines, it starts out as a reflex, others say it doesnt

Question 7

What is mirror neurons?

Answer 7

• Specialized cells for imitiation
• 6 months of age
• Powerful way of learning

Question 8

Touch

Answer 8

Basic reflex around the mouth - survival
Fundamental for
- Interactions; responsiveness via gentle touching, positive
- Physical growth and emotional development
- Releasing painkilling chemicals, endorphins; sensitive to pain
- Exploring the environment and distinguish shape and texture of objects

Can overstimulate the CNS
- Hurt future development
- Sleep disturbances
- Feeding problems
- Sensitive to pain/stress

Question 9

Taste and Smell

Answer 9

• Preferences to basic tastes and odors at birth
• Traces of survivial - newborn use scent of mother to guide towards the breast
• Differentiate their mother to another mother
• Smell used to reveal preferences of human milk than formula
• Infants differentiate different types of food and caregrivers from othes through smell
• Information and guides behavior

Question 10

Hearing

Answer 10

• Sensitive to sound, especially speech
• Explore the environment
• Gradually evolves
• 3-day infant orient head and eyes at general direction of sound
• Differentiate varity of sound patterns
  Parents vs Strangers, Native language vs foreign

Question 11

Statistical learning

Answer 11

• Progress language perception via patterns and sounds

Question 12

How does infants react to speech?

Answer 12

• Listens longer to human speech than sounds
• Can detect subtle changes early on and regularities
• Preferences to their native tongue

Important that parents engage with their children, increase responsiveness

Question 13

Vision

Answer 13

• Least developt at birth, but the sense we rely on the most to explore our surroundings
• Development takes months, up to years
• At birth; cannot focus their eyes well, fineness of discrimination is limited, parents faces are blurry
• Babies prefer colors but cant distinguish them
• Still explore alot

Question 14

How does the visual system develop?

Answer 14

• Rapid development first months
  2 - focus on obejcts like adults
  4 - color discrimination like adults
  4 years - visual sharpness like adults
• Use of scanning and tracking the environment, bidirectional association

Question 15

What is depth perception?

Answer 15

• Ability to judge distance between objects and the distance from ourself

Question 16

How does depth perception develop?

Answer 16

Motion, perceiving moving objects , they are not flat - week 3-4
Binocular depth - 2-3 months and improves over the year
- Steropsis; different visual information from both eyes blended to gauge depth and movement
Pictorial depth, sensitivity to visual effects, 3D vision - 3-4mont and improve of the year

• In correlation with motor skils

Question 17

How does pattern perception develop?

Answer 17

3 weeks
- Poor contrast sensitivity
- Prefers large, simple patterns
2 months
- Detect detail in complex patterns
- Scans internal features
4 months
- Detect patterns with no clear boundry present
12 months
- Detect objects with 2/3 of drawing missing

Question 18

How does face perception develop?

Answer 18

• Prefer simple drawings of face presented upright
• Scan entire stimulus and organize patterns into a whole , details in someones face
• Fine distinctions between different faces
• Prefer faces of same race - 3-6 months
• Prefer emotional expression
• Newborns search for structure
• Recongnize their mom based on outlines of their face

Question 19

How does object perception develop?

Answer 19

First week after birth;
- Size constancy - perception of an objects size as the same despite changes in the size of its retinal image
- Shape constancy - perception of an object shape as stable despite changes

• Relies on motion and spatial arrangement to identify objects
• 4-5 months; differentiate shape, color and texture of an object

Question 20

What is intermodel perception?

Answer 20

• All senses are used
• Help to make sense when there is a lot of information
• Fundamental for psychological development - infants provided with a diverse experiences process more information, learn faster and has better memory

Question 21

Amodal sensory properties

Answer 21

Information that is not specific to one single modality, but overlaps

Question 22

Differentiation Theory

Answer 22

• Infants actively search for invariant, stable, features of the environment
• Detecting patterns
• Finer details over time

Question 23

Affordances

Answer 23

• The action possibilities that a situation offers an organism with certain motor capabilities
  Exploring
  Touching
  Falling

Question 24

What happens if infants is exposed to a less enrich environment?

Answer 24

• Below average in physical and psychological development
• Emotional and intellectual impairments
• Behavioral problems
• Difficult to study due to ethical reasons
• Use of natural environment , orphanage
• Infants can be too stimulated, not too great either