Chapter 5 - Perception, Action, and Learning in Infancy

Sensation

• the processing of basic info from the external world by receptors in the sense organs (eyes, ears, skin…) and the brain.

Perception

• the process of organizing and interpreting sensory info about the objects, events, & spatial layout of the world around us.

Preferential-looking technique

• Infants are shown 2 images simultaneously to see if the infants prefer one over the other.

• This technique is a method for studying visual attention in infants.

Visual acuity

• the sharpness and clarity of vision.

Contrast Sensitivity

• the ability to detect differences in light and dark areas in a visual pattern

Cone cells

• light-sensitive neurons that are involved in seeing fine detail and colour.

Smooth pursuit eye movements

• gaze shifts at the same rate and angle as a moving object, which keeps it in view and is a way infants have active control over what they observe and learn.

Perceptual constancy

• When a person moves to or away from us, they look to change shape and size, but we do not think they do in reality.

What is common movement essential in?

• Perceiving disparate elements moving together as one,.

• it has to be learned and infants only learn to around 2 months of age.

Cultural influence on object perception

• The culture in which infants develop also influences their attention to the visual world (for example, viewing eyes instead of mouths, and viewing objects instead of actions, and background contexts depending on where in the world they are raised and the customs).

Violate-of-expectancy

When the subjects are supposed to be shocked or intrigued if the event they are shown goes against something they know.

Optical expansion

• an object increases in size as it comes towards us, and we know if the object expands symmetrically as well, it is headed for us.

Binocular disparity

• the difference between the retinal image of an object in each eye that results in 2 slightly different signals being sent to the brain

Auditory Localization

• the perception of the location in space of a sound source, and newborns have difficulty with this because their heads are small which impacts timing and loudness of incoming information.

Perceptual narrowing

• experience fine-tunes the perceptual system

Food neophobia

• when children avoid unfamiliar foods, and is strongly influenced by smell instead of taste.

Touch at 4 months

• They gain greater control over their hand and arm movements by 4 months, and relate the sensation of being touched to the locations on their bodies that are being touched (mental maps of their own bodies are being formed).

Intermodal perception

• the combining of information from 2 or more sensory systems

Reflexes

• Fixed patterns of action that occur in response to particular stimulation.

• Examples are rooting, sucking and swallowing, tonic neck, startle, grasping, and stepping.

  • These are not fully automatic as some occur when an infant is feeling something (ex. rooting is more likely when an infant is hungry).

  • Some neo-natal reflexes disappear, but some - coughing, sneezing, blinking, and withdrawing from pain - remain throughout life.

The major milestones of motor development in infancy

• prone, lifts head

• prone, chest up, uses arms for support

• rolls over

• supports some weight with legs

• sits without support

• stands with support

• pulls self to stand

• walks using furniture for support

• stands alone easily

• walks alone easily

• There are tremendous individual and cultural differences in the ages in which these milestones are achieved due to cultural norms & practices and how much motor skills are encouraged, if at all.

• Cultural practices undertaken in one domain can have unforeseen consequences in another domain.

What did Arnold Gesell and Myrtle McGraw conclude?

• infants’ motor development is governed by brain maturation, but current theorists emphasize that early motor development results from the joining of numerous factors including developing neural mechanisms, increases in infants’ strength, posture control, balance, perceptual skills and so on.

affordances

• the possibilities for action offered, or afforded, by objects and situations

Infant’s increasing ability to explore and manipulate the world

• facilitates learning about the world.

• Infants who are better able to interact with their environment may have an advantage in perceptual and cognitive development by being better able to seek out new opportunities for learning.

Pre-reaching movements

• clumsy swiping in the general vicinity of objects

• Reaching behaviour interacts with infants’ growing understanding of the world around them, and has a social component as infants perceive adults as able to help them accomplish goals they can’t on their own, so they reach more often when an adult is present.

Self-locomotion

• The ability to move oneself around in the environment.

Scale errors

• the attempts by a young child to perform an action on a miniature object that is impossible due to the large difference in the sizes of the child and the object.

• occur because of challenges in integrating perceptual information with motor behaviour.

Habituation

• a decrease in response after repeated simulation, and it reveals that learning has taken place as the infant has formed a memory of the repeated and now familiar stimulus.

• Infants who habituate relatively rapidly tend to have higher IQs when tested as many as 18 years later.

Classical conditioning

• a form of learning that consists of associating an initally neutral stimulus with a stimulus that always evokes a particular reflexive response.

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

• a stimulus that evokes a reflexive response

Unconditioned Response (UCR)

• a reflexive response that is elicited by the UCS.

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

• (the neutral stimulus that is repeatedly paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

Conditioned REsponse

• the originally reflexive response that comes to be elicited by the conditioned stimulus)

Instrumental Conditioning

• learning the relation between one’s own behaviour and the consequences that result from it..

Positive reinforcement

• a reward for correct behaviour in the situation that increases the likelihood the behaviour will be repeated.

Rational learning

• the ability to use prior experience to predict what will happen in the future.

Active Learning

• learning by engaging with the world, rather than passively observing objects and events.

Infants retain information over _________

weeks or months

Long-term memory ____ with age

strengthens