Methods/Theories
Making Infants Bored
Habituation
Type of motor impact developed by giving infants stair climbing training
No impact
Infants are given the problems 1+1=2 and 1+1=9. Which problem is the looking time the greatest?
1+1=9
According to Piaget, what do children in the preoperational stage have and don’t have?
Have: Mental representation, capacity for pretend play, understanding symbols
Don’t have: Logical operations
T or F: The “Back to Sleep” campaign was effective at reducing SIDS (sudden infant deaths) AND was associated with an earlier onset of crawling in infants.
False – it was associated with a later onset of crawling
Learning in which different environments have a big impact
General-Purpose Learning/Blank Slate
If an infant is an experienced sitting, and is inexperienced while in a crawling position. What position would the infant be more inclined to cross an unsafe gap in?
Inexperienced Posture/Crawling Position
According to the Weber Ratio/ANS Acuity, would a six month old or a 13 month old be able to detect the difference between 3 and 4 balls?
13-month-old
Lily, a 3-month-old infant is shown a screen rotating 180° until she becomes bored. An eraser is then placed behind the screen. On the next trial, Lily either sees the screen rotate part way before coming back or rotate fully through. In this scenario, Lily would look ______ when the screen rotates part way and ______ when the screen rotates fully through.
shorter; longer
Emily has a Weber fraction of 0.12 and Tracy has a Weber fraction of 0.34. Based on research, who is more likely to perform better on standardized math tests in the future?
Emily because she has a smaller weber fraction which is correlated with better performance on standardized math tests
Type of study design that follows individuals over a long period of time
Longitudinal
The back to sleep campaign in the early 90's was implemented to combat SIDS. Since infants were being placed on their back more, what impact on motor development did parents notice?
Delayed crawling
While participating in the “Give-N-Task”, a three-year-old is asked to give the experimenter 2 balls. Exactly how many balls does the child give the experimenter?
2
Jimmy is 3 years old and thinks that all living things are things that walk. When his mom tells him that trees are living things, he initially disagrees, saying trees can’t be alive because they don’t walk. However after watching trees grow over time, Jimmy changes his thinking and starts to believe that living things also include things that grow. According to Piaget, which process best illustrates this change?
Equilibration
Initial Equilibrium: Living things are things that walk
Disequilibrium: Trees don’t walk but are considered living things
New Equilibrium: Living things are things that walk and grow
Caleb, a 2-year-old, says “I goed to the park” instead of “I went to the park.” However, he has not been taught grammar yet and has never heard adults use the word “goed” before. This behavior is best explained by which learning mechanism?
Specialized Learning Mechanism – Caleb has never heard the word “goed” before yet was able to generate a novel form of the word indicating that he must have some internal learning mechanism for language that general purpose learning alone wouldn’t be sufficient
The animal that monkeys were more inclined to develop a fear of over flowers
snakes
Evidence that is not used when developing a conclusion about cradle boards because of population differences
Data of Hopi Native Americans vs White Americans
The Piraha people have few exact number words...which task do they perform equally well on as native French speakers?
Approximate Number Task
You are a research assistant in Dr. Liberman’s Child Studies Lab and you’ve been tasked with designing a study to see how kids reason in different tasks. You show a six year old participant, Jake, two identical cups of milk with the same amount of liquid. You then pour one of the cups into a shorter, wider cup and ask him which cup has more milk. What kind of task are you testing? According to Piaget, what stage of development is Jake in? How will Jake likely answer?
Conservation Task
Pre-Operational Stage (2-7 years)
He will reason the original cup contains more because the milk level is higher
Bella is a 3½ year-old who can correctly count up to ten and can give her mom exactly three candies when asked, but gives her mom a random number of candies when asked for four. What level of “knower” is Bella? How can her performance be improved on this task?
Three Knower, her parents could use more number words and label larger sets of numbers (particularly more than 3) to improve her “knower” level
If a rat heard a certain tone, then experienced nausea. What would the rat develop an aversion to?
No aversion
Long Term consequences of extremely restrictive methods for infants (ex. Gahvora)
None! Infants will eventually catch up
Rule of counting stating that the last number word used indicates the set size
Cardinality Principle
Alice is a 9-month-old who is able to successfully find a toy hidden at location A. In a new trial, she sees the toy hidden at location B, but when given a chance to search, she still reaches back to location A. According to Piaget, this error occurs because the infant lacks _________. What are some ways to challenge Piaget’s conclusion? In other words, what are some ways to reduce the A not B error?
Object permanence
Change Alice’s position, reduce the delay between hiding and searching in new location, reduce motor demands (using looking-time studies instead)
Which of the following evidence best supports the idea that social cues may influence object search in infants?
A. A not B errors were significantly smaller in the noncommunicative and nonsocial conditions compared to the ostensive-communicative condition
B. Infants in the noncommunicative condition were more likely to search at location A than location B across all trials
C. A not B errors were significant smaller in the ostensive-communicative condition compared to the noncommunicative and nonsocial conditions
D. Infants in the ostensive-communicative condition were more likely to search at location B than infants in the nonsocial condition across B trials
A. A not B errors were significantly smaller in the noncommunicative and nonsocial conditions compared to the ostensive-communicative condition