Nature/Nurture
French philosopher, Rene Descartes, believes in the theory of core knowledge. Is Descartes more likely to believe that genetics, where an infant was raised, or both contribute to development?
Genetics!
5-month-old Jacob Elordi was reaching for his favorite football. All of a sudden, Joey King turned off the lights. Jacob Elordi continued to reach for the football. Does this piece of evidence support or contradict Piaget’s theories of development?
Contradict
George goes to the park with his mom and sees a squirrel for the first time. His mom points to it and says, “Look George, that’s a squirrel!” George assumes that the word “squirrel” refers to the entire animal rather than just one of its parts (e.g., the fur or eyes). What heuristic is George using?
Whole object assumption
T or F: Bilinguals demonstrate more use of mutual exclusivity compared to monolinguals
False- Bilinguals demonstrate LESS use of mutual exclusivity compared to monolinguals
T or F: Ashley is an infant who has recently mastered crawling. Based on lecture, mastery in crawling will easily transfer to mastery in walking once Ashley starts to learn how to walk.
False; learning motor skills is action-specific so mastery in crawling does not transfer to mastery in walking, it’s the experience within a posture that matters
A dog bred from a local dog breeder was adopted by Prince Harry in Montecito. The dog led a lavish and very safe life. One day, the dog saw Meghan Markle be bitten by a snake. Will the dog be fearful or unbothered the next time it sees a snake?
Fearful
Five-year-old Gronk has a cup full of juice. Tom Brady takes the cup and pours the juice into a taller, skinnier cup. Tom Brady asks Gronk which cup has more juice, what will Gronk Answer?
The taller, skinnier cup
In studies measuring infant sucking behavior in response to speech sounds, when do infants show increased sucking?
When they hear their native language, and when a different language is introduced after they have been habituated to one language
While visiting a zoo in China, Rachel sees a panda. The tour guide points at it and says a word in Mandarin that she doesn’t know. She assumes it means “panda,” but it could just as easily refer to the panda’s fur, its ears, or its movements. What problem does this illustrate?
The Gavagai Problem
In Kuhl et al.’s study, a group of infants who were exposed only to English were assigned to different language exposure conditions and then tested repeatedly across a 4 week period to examine how different types of Mandarin exposure (i.e. live, video, audio) affected phoneme discrimination over time. What type of study design is this?
Longitudinal study design
Everytime baby Drake Maye saw an ant, his mean older brother would pinch Drake Maye and he would start to cry. When the Maye family went to the zoo, baby Drake Maye saw a Roly-Poly. What will baby Drake Maye do?
Cry. Drake Maye is scared.
Sabrina Carpenter thinks all animals that have tails are cats. She sees a giraffe and exclaims “cat!”. Joshua Bassett explains to Sabrina that the animal is a giraffe. Sabrina no longer thinks all animals that have tails are cats. What process does Sabrina Carpenter go through?
Accommodation
Which of the following statements about iconicity is FALSE? (select all that apply)
A. It is just as easy for deaf children to learn iconic and non-iconic signs
B. Undergraduates with no experience with ASL tend to learn non-iconic signs more easily than iconic signs
C. Iconic signs are signs in which there is no perceived similarity between the sign and its meaning
D. Babies tend to learn signs that are relevant to their everyday experiences faster regardless of whether the signs are iconic
B. Undergraduates with no experience with ASL tend to learn ICONIC signs more easily than non-iconic signs
C. Iconic signs are signs in which there is perceived similarity between the sign and its meaning
Which of the following is true about homesign?
a. Parents do not learn any parts of the homesign system and their gestures remain random
b. Homesign systems show more grammatical structure than the gesture speech systems used by parents
c. Homesign systems are as complex and fully developed as sign languages that have existed for many generations
d. Homesign systems only emerge in older children suggesting language requires long-term development
Homesign systems show more grammatical structure than the gesture speech systems used by parents
Janice has a Weber fraction of 0.37 and Leah has a Weber fraction of 0.23. Based on research, who is more likely to perform better on standardized math tests in the future?
Leah because she has a smaller weber fraction which is correlated with better performance on standardized math tests
(smaller weber fraction= able to discriminate between numbers closer together)
Mr. Fox is given novel food to eat (cookie) and then at the same time hears a novel sound play and then receives a shock. Later on, Mr. Fox is given another novel food to eat (applesauce) then hears a new sound play and then gets nauseous. If Mr. Fox demonstrates domain specific learning then what will he associate the cookie with?
Nothing! No shock or nausea
Nine-year-old Olivia Dean is being trained at hypothetical reasoning. For one hour a day, she practices answering questions like “If all the strings on your guitar were made of snow, what would happen when you played a song? After one month of training, how would Olivia Dean answer the question “Feathers shatter when dropped, what would happen when I drop this feather?” according to Piaget’s theory of development?
She couldn’t/the feather would float to the ground/can’t be trained
Mei, a 12-month-old infant raised in a Mandarin-speaking environment, participates in a phoneme discrimination study. She is first trained to turn her head toward a toy bunny that lights up whenever there is a sound change in Mandarin. After this training phase, Mei is tested on an English (non-native) phoneme contrast “vee” vs. “wee”, a distinction that does not exist in Mandarin. Which outcome is most likely based on research findings?
A. Mei will reliably turn her head when the sound changes, demonstrating sensitivity to all human phoneme contrasts
B. Mei will only turn her head after extended training, showing delayed but intact discrimination of non-native phonemes
C. Mei will show stronger discrimination for “vee” vs. “wee” than native English-learning infants due to novelty
D. Mei will not reliably turn her head when the sound changes, indicating difficulty discriminating non-native phonemes
D. By 10-12 months infants ability to discriminate phonemes in non-native languages drastically decrease
Joey is bilingual in Japanese and English. During story time, his teacher shows the class a picture of a submarine and says, “In this story, we’re going to call this a giraffe.” Later, the teacher asks, “Can giraffes swim?” While many students say no, Joey answers “yes.” What ability is Joey demonstrating?
Metalinguistic awareness
James is asked to tell the difference between 123 and 124. The small number system can represent exact quantities but only for very small amounts, and the large approximate number system can represent large quantities but not for exact differences. According to lecture, what additional system is required for James to represent large exact numbers?
Culturally created symbols/system (e.g., counting)
Baby Mary Kate was trained to climb up stairs, while her identical twin sister Ashley watched Cocomelon. Months went by and baby Ashley was unable to climb the stairs. Is it nature or nurture that caused Baby Ashley to not climb the stairs?
Nurture
Phineas loves to play outside with his brother, Ferb. He has an imaginary friend, Perry, who likes to fight crime (according to Phineas). Ferb tells Phineas that he feels left out when Phineas plays with Perry. However, Phineas doesn’t understand since he is always having fun! According to Piaget, what stage of development is Phineas in?
Pre-Operational Stage
Thomas’s native language is French, and he is regularly exposed to English-speaking cousins, but he cannot speak English himself. Based on lecture, which type of task would Thomas be expected to perform well on, and which type of task would he not necessarily perform well on? Explain why.
Perform well: Social communication tasks (e.g., perspective-taking tasks like the grid of toys task)
Not perform well: Executive functioning tasks such as the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS)
Explanation: Regular exposure to a second language provides practice with social communication skills, such as taking another person’s perspective. However, because Thomas does not actively speak both languages, he does not need to switch between languages or inhibit one language over another. As a result, performance on social communication tasks is NOT directly related to performance on executive functioning tasks like the DCCS.
Which of the following are true of the development of Nicaraguan Sign Language? (Select all that apply)
A. Exposure to a language model is not necessary for children to develop consistent labels, but complex grammar and abstract structures require interaction with other language learners
B. Differences between NSL cohorts’ representation of numbers are more evident for small quantities
C. By the third cohort, NSL included a non-iconic, one-handed, count list
D. The third cohort outperformed the first cohort on numerical tasks involving large numbers
A, C, and D
Select all statements that are TRUE about executive functioning
A. Children who are only exposed to a second language display similar executive functioning advantages with bilingual children
B. Bilinguals show stronger activation in the prefrontal cortex during certain language tasks demonstrating higher executive functioning
C. The A not B error may occur in part due to immature executive functioning
D. Regular practice with selective attention and inhibition does NOT contribute to improvements in executive functioning
E. Monolingual individuals tend to receive a later Alzheimer’s diagnosis due to stronger executive functioning
B and C