explain: dev. of posture
- linking sensory info from skin, joints, muscles + vestibular organs in inner ear + vision and hearing
- 2 mths = sit w/ support and hold head erect
- 6 - 7 mths = sit indep.
- 8 - 9 ths = pull up to standing
- 10 - 12 mths stand alone
explain: dev. of fine motor skills
- fine tuned mvt. requiring finger dexterity
- 0 - 2 yrs: reaching and grasping
- experience matter
⤷ more exploration and trial and error - 18 - 24 mths: tower building with blocks
define: sensation vs perception
- sensation: activating sensory receptors
- perception: interpretation of sensation
name: techniques for testing infants (4)
PERCEPTION
1. preference paradigm
2. habituation dishabituation
3. operant conditioning
COGNITION
4. violation of expectation paradigm
define: techniques for testing infants (4)
PERCEPTION
1. preference paradigm
- newborns resp. diff. to what they find interesting vs boring so we can observe their preference
- habituation dishabituation
- habituate -> decreased responses to repeated presentation of same stim.
- present a new stim:
⤷ if perceives diff. -> resp increases (dishabituation) - operant conditioning
- provide two options oof behaviour and reward
- to the extent that they act more to receive reward, we can conclude they prefer the reward
COGNITION
4. violation of expectation paradigm
- look longer and impossible events
⤷ bc understnad that smth is being violated
- ex. if object with pushed across a surface too far but still stays up = violates gravity
question: how is newborn vision compared to adults?
- 30x worse than adults
- have contrast sensitivity (can diff. stim based on contrast diff.)
name: newborn vision deficits (5)
- vis acuity
- contrast sensitivity
- convergence (eyes converge on single object)
- coordination (follow object w/ eyes)
- colour perception
⤷ can’t diff. blue yellow green
⤷ can do white vs black
explain: babies and faces
- originally thought to be drawn to face like patterns
- more actually to top-heavy patterns
- look longer at faces ranked to be more attractive by adults
⤷ not just human faces but animals too
⤷ genetic explanation: have neural wiring to prefer avg faces
⤷ envrt explanation: accumulate vis info to form avg
explain: own-race preference
- 3 mths: infants look longer at a face of their own race
- mixed babies did not show preference to either race
question: how does perception change with experience (race)?
- experience fine tunes perception
- dishabituate to less and less races from 3 mths -> 9 mths
explain: high-amplitude sucking in preference testing
- playing a song = interesting -> sucking rate increases
⤷ over time habituates to song and decreases rate - play a diff. song -> increases again
- child can discover than they can control the song that plays by changing sucking rate
- compare listening times -> shows preference
question: how does perception change with experience (ra vs la)
- play ra ra ra ra
- switch to la, turn head for reward
- at 6 mths: US and Japanese infants can both discriminate la and ra
- 10 - 12 mths: Japanese can not longer discriminate, US got better
explain: children’s auditory preferences
SPEECH
- mid freq. tones overhigh or low
- motherese/infant directed speech
- normal (over backwards)
MUSIC
- natural pauses
- consonance over dissonance
- scales and rhythms of own cultures
define: intersensory redundance
- infants’ perceptual system is attuned to amodal info present in multiple sensory modalities
- 2 sources of info being mixed can help to be differentiated
explain: infant synesthesia
- kiki vs booma
- ex. of intersensory connections between vis. and aud.
- adults perceive the letters but babies might see shape of mouth
explain: emotional expressions and intersensory redundancy
- younger children need both modalities to discern emo. even if redundant
⤷ need both aud. and vis. - 4 mths = only dishabituate to emo. when has both modalities
- 5 mths = can dishab. w/out vis
⤷ only aud. stim needed (shows improvement) - 7 mths = can dishab w/ even if only 1 modality
- dishabituating to new emo. = more sensitive to stim.
