recommended reading

Question 1

lecture 2 - attachments:
sugita (2009) - innate face processing

Answer 1

Monkeys were deprived of seeing human or monkey faces during early development.
After deprivation, they were shown faces and non-face objects.
Researchers measured visual preference (looking times) and discrimination abilities

Question 2

what did Sugita find?

Answer 2

spontaneous preference for faces over objects - suggests innate bias
face recognition ability
cross-species recognition - can discriminate human and monkey faces
specialized system - face processing is a special perceptual system

Question 3

lecture 4 - cog dev:
best and miller (2010) - developmental perspective on EF

Answer 3

Developmental review across childhood and adolescence.
EF develops gradually, with spurts during preschool and adolescence; linked to brain maturation.

Question 4

lecture 5 object concept and mental representation:
Jones (2009) - dev of imitation in infancy

Answer 4

examined studies of newborn imitation (e.g. facial gestures) and compared them with longitudinal data on infants’ ability to imitate motor acts, gestures, and vocalizations.

Question 5

what did Jones find?

Answer 5

The widely accepted claim that newborns imitate facial gestures lacks consistent supporting evidence. Replications often fail
reliable imitation is 2nd year
diff behs diff timelines
imitation is not specialized but dev through integration of motor control, cog rep and social motivation

Question 6

lecture 6 - numerical cog
LeFevre et al, (2006) - what counts as knowing? The development of conceptual and procedural knowledge of counting from kindergarten through Grade 2

Answer 6

Children were asked to perform counting tasks and explain their reasoning, allowing researchers to distinguish between procedural fluency and conceptual understanding.

Question 7

what did LeFevre find?

Answer 7

procedural knowledge dev earlier - could perform counting procedures correctly individual diffs
conceptual knowledge lags - understanding of principles dev more slowly

Question 8

lecture 7 - social dev
birch and bloom (2007) - the curse of knowledge in reasoning about false beliefs

Answer 8

Participants were shown scenarios where a protagonist held a false belief (e.g., an object hidden in one location but moved without the protagonist’s knowledge).
Participants had to predict where the protagonist would look for the object.

Question 9

what did Birch and Bloom find?

Answer 9

implication of ToM -Adults, despite having mature Theory of Mind, still struggle with perspective-taking when their own knowledge conflicts with another’s ignorance.
robustness - The effect persisted even when participants were explicitly instructed to ignore their own knowledge.

Question 10

lecture 9 - ASD - Jaswal and Akhtar (2019) Being versus appearing socially uninterested: challenging assumptions about social motivation in autism

Answer 10

reframing behaviors by considering alternative explanations rooted in autistic perspectives, sensory differences, and communication styles

Question 11

what did Jand A find?

Answer 11

eye contact - avoid as uncomfy not due to lack in social interest
motor stereoptypes - stimming serves regulatory or comm functions

overall - behs do not reflect a lack of social motivation but diffs in how autistic ppl express and manage social engagement