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• Cognition is thinking, involving the acquisition and manipulation of information
• Cognitive processes are mental, performed neurally, and inferred from behavior or physiological measures

Developmental Aspects

• Development involves changes to structure and function
• It addresses questions of description (what) and explanation (how)
• It considers age-related and individual differences
• Development is influenced by internal and external factors through a dynamic and reciprocal transaction, involving nature vs. nurture

Context

• Development is influenced by an individual's social and evolutionary environments
• Children's representation of information changes with development
• Strategies are deliberate, goal-directed mental operations for problem-solving
• Executive function is a cognitive ability that helps control and coordinate other cognitive abilities, such as working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility
• Domain-general cognitive abilities support performance on various tasks, like working memory and processing speed
• Domain-specific cognitive abilities are specific to a particular type of task, such as language or face processing

Natural Selection

• Adaptive traits are passed down, while traits that were adaptive for ancestors may be maladaptive today, such as preferences for sweets/fats
• Deferred adaptations prepare individuals for current and later environments, illustrated by attachment and adolescent risk-taking
• Ontogenetic adaptations benefit the individual for a specific time in development and disappear when no longer needed, like the umbilical cord or sucking reflex in newborns
• Probabilistic learning involves inferring patterns and predicting outcomes based on statistical evidence
• Core knowledge refers to foundational cognitive structures believed to be innate in humans and some other animals

Abilities

• Biologically primary abilities are innate skills, evolutionarily driven, and humans are naturally good at learning, universally emerging across cultures and are acquired effortlessly
• Culturally developed skills build on primary abilities but require explicit instruction and practice
• Genotype is an individual's genetic information, such as Db (Dark/blonde heterozygous)
• Phenotype is an individual's directly observable characteristics, such as brunette hair

Genetics

• Biological determinism suggests that individuals are solely the product of their biology
• Kinship studies compare characteristics between family members
• Adoption studies compare adopted children to their biological and adopted parents, including separated identical twins
• Twin-Studies: Compare monozygotic twins (genetically identical) and dizygotic twins (genetically different)
• Gene x Environment Interactions: People are variably influenced by the environment based on genes
• Developmental Systems Approach: Emphasizes that development occurs within a system of interacting levels over time
• Individuals actively participate in their own development, like piano playing influencing brain development
• Timing of experiences matters, with critical or sensitive periods when specific skills or abilities are most easily learned or acquired, but earlier experience is not always better
• Premature visual stimulation reduced preference for own-species (Bobwhite) call
• Epigenesis: The emergence of new structures and functions across development
• Passive gene-environment correlation occurs when biological parents provide both genetic traits and an environment that naturally supports them
• Evocative gene-environment correlation happens when an individual's genetic traits elicit specific responses from their environment
• Active gene-environment correlation is when individuals actively seek environments that align with their genetic predispositions

Neuronal Development

• Cephalocaudal development: Pattern of head developing prior to lower limbs
• Neurons are born from neural stem cells during proliferation, peaking in the 3rd or 4th month of gestation.
• Neurons migrate to their "adult" location in the brain.
• Neurons extend dendrites and axonal terminals, forming synapses with other neurons through differentiation/synaptogenesis from the 3rd trimester through adolescence
• New neurons develop postnatally in some brain areas, including the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, from birth to adulthood
• Neurons become coated with myelin, a fatty tissue, resulting in faster signal transmission; this process occurs from the 3rd trimester to adulthood
• Neurons die through selective cell death (apoptosis), occurring from the 3rd trimester to adulthood
• Synaptic pruning occurs from infancy-adulthood, and the number of synapses per neuron is greatest between 4 and 8 months of life before decreasing with age

Cerebral Cortex

• The occipital lobe is for vision
• The parietal lobe is for spatial processing and attention
• The frontal lobe is for planning, speech production, and decision-making
• The temporal lobe is for hearing, language, and memory

Brain

• The hypothalamus is for fight, flight, feeding, and mating
• The cerebellum is for motor coordination and some cognitive functions
• The hippocampus for memory and spatial processing
• The pituitary gland produces and releases hormones
• The amygdala is for emotional processing
• The brain stem regulates critical life-sustaining functions

Brain Growth

• Experience-expectant brain growth requires species-typical experiences during a sensitive period for normal development, including language, interactions with caregivers, and sensory experiences
• Experience-dependent brain growth refers to how experiences beyond typical ones influence brain development, with no sensitive period necessary
• ERP measures electrical activity of neurons, providing high temporal resolution for tracking processes
• MRI: Provides high spatial resolution to examine brain structures and anatomical differences.
• fMRI measures brain activity by detecting blood flow changes
• fNIRS uses infrared light to track blood flow, offering intermediate temporal and spatial resolution between ERPs and fMRI
• Species-typical social environments include interactions with a consistent caregiver, exposure to faces, language, and interactions with peers
• Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory emphasizes that development is guided by social interactions
• Ontogenetic development refers to the development of individuals throughout their lifespan
• Microgenetic Development: Change that occurs over a short period of time
• Phylogenetic development is change that occurs over evolutionary time
• Sociohistorical development is described as changes across generations in one's culture
• Cognitive development research primarily focuses on children from Western, European, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic cultures
• Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory
• Microsystem: direct contact
• Mesosystem: interactions between microsystem (parent-teacher):
• Exosystem: structures (school board)
• Macrosystem: culture
• Chronosystem: systems over time

Measures

• Implicit measures are measures that are not directly/verbally reported
• Explicit measures are direct reports of cognition
• Sucking measures how often a baby sucks on a pacifier to determine interest in a stimulus
• Preferential Looking tracks where a baby looks longer to see which image or object they prefer
• Habituation repeatedly shows the same stimulus until the baby loses interest, then introduces something new to see if they notice the change
• Conditioned Head Turn teaches babies to turn their heads when they hear a change in sound by rewarding correct responses
• Preferential Looking Procedure is similar to preferential looking but used in experiments to measure visual discrimination

Visual Perception

• Newborn Stimulus Preferences: Newborns prefer faces, black-and-white contrasts, and moving stimuli over stationary ones
• Basic Visual Abilities progress with age, and visual acuity develops gradually, reaching adult levels by around 6 years due to foveal development
• Abilities:
  • Focus (i.e., accommodation) by 3 months
  • Color Vision by 4 months
  • Convergence (i.e., both eyes looking at the same object) by 6 months
  • Visual tracking (i.e., coordination) by 6 months
  • Acuity by 6 years
• Familiarity vs. Novelty Effects: 1- to 2-month-olds show a familiarity preference, while 2- to 6-month-olds prefer novelty
• Goldilocks Effect: Infants prefer stimuli that are neither too simple nor too complex
• Early face detection is driven by subcortical regions
• Cortical regions become specialized for face recognition within the first year
• Newborns prefer sounds heard in the womb, orient toward sound sources, and recognize their native language
• Auditory Perception include newborn auditory skills, phoneme perception, and statistical learning
• Infants can distinguish phonemes from all languages at 6 months but lose the ability to perceive non-native phonemes by 12 months
• Statistical Learning describes the ability to detect patterns in sensory input, such as recognizing word boundaries in speech Intersensory Integration:
• Intersensory Integration is combining information from multiple senses

Cognition and examples

• Violation-of-Expectation occurs when infants look longer at events that violate their expectations
• The A-not-B Task tests object permanence where 8- to 10-month-olds fail by searching in the wrong location, while 12-month-olds succeed
• Three Core Knowledge include object representation, number sense and social cognition
• Infants expect objects to move as cohesive units, require contact for movement transfer, and follow continuous paths
• Discrete Number System is precisely counting small numbers
• Approximate Number System is estimating larger quantities