158 Questions
What type of play is characterized by mothers encouraging infants to perform at or above their previous level?
Unstructured play
Which group is better at sustaining attention from infants in unstructured, physically active play?
Peers
In preschool, what is observed about episodes of unstructured pretend play with peers compared to those with mothers?
Episodes with peers are longer
Which type of play is best noted for supporting continued engagement through joint enthusiasm?
Joint play with peers
What function does mother-infant play serve according to the text?
Teaching function
What has been linked to innovative uses for objects, a flexible approach to problem solving, creativity, and better performance on divergent thinking tasks?
Playing freely with materials
Which group is more supportive of infants' emerging pretense play until about 2-3 years?
Mothers
At 17-20 months, infants engage in more creative and unusual uses of objects during play when they are with:
Peers
According to Piaget and Vygotsky, what is correlated with language development, including verbal fluency and complexity of language structures?
Pretend play
Which type of play is more diverse, complex, and sustained when infants engage in it with their mothers?
Symbolic play with mothers
What is one activity that peers and siblings support in both exploratory and pretend play?
Being creative
What is the term used to describe the origins of social understanding, particularly in the affective domain?
Intersubjectivity
At what age do peers engage in more verbal communication, which in turn leads to an increased understanding of feelings and thoughts not limited to the immediate play context?
29-38 months
What can disrupt play between a mother and infant, according to the text?
Failure to respond with appropriate emotional expression
What helps children build negotiation skills, according to the text?
Teasing games and rituals
What do toddlers derive from their peers that can lead to a response to another child's crying, particularly if that child is a friend?
Social support, trust, and intimacy
What type of play do Japanese mothers typically engage in with their infants as compared to US mothers?
Nurturing/household play vs. action play
At what age do infants typically engage in inappropriate combinational activity?
13 months
Which type of play involves the production of an effect unique to a single object?
Unitary functional activity
What type of pretense involves pretending actions directly towards others?
Other-directed pretense
Which function of play involves children regulating arousal and expressing emotions through play?
Intrapshychological
What age range shows an increase in goal-directed behaviors as they practice emerging skills and attempt multi-part tasks?
1-2 years
Mothers who spend more time in joint attention with 2-year-olds have infants with better self-soothing when they get frustrated. This statement relates to which function of play?
Intrapshychological
'Self-directed pretense' play involves what type of activity directed towards the self?
Pretending actions directly towards self
What type of play is most prevalent with older siblings compared to mothers?
Pretense play
How does mother-child play facilitate language development compared to play with siblings or peers?
It encourages more complex language use
What skill is enhanced through role play among children?
Perspective-taking ability
Which type of interaction is important for developing communicative reciprocity in infancy?
Play with adult caregivers
What developmental aspect is supported by mothers' focus on objects and their functions during play?
Symbolic abilities development
How does adult engagement during collaborative play impact toddlers' development?
It positively impacts language and cognitive development
What aspect of social development is emphasized by early studies in the text?
The importance of social networks for infant development
In the nature/nurture debate, which side stresses the impact of genetic factors on development?
Nature side
What do early studies of attentional and cognitive development suggest about infants?
They are born with the ability to perceive their environment
Which type of emotion is linked to cognitive growth in infants according to the text?
Self-conscious emotion
What method is used to assess socio-emotional behavior in infants as per the text?
Naturalistic observation
Which developmental factor is stressed by the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate?
Environmental influences
Who conducted a study on 'Hospitalism and anaclitic depression' in 1947?
Wolf and Wolff
Which early study emphasized the importance of the infants' relation to an object as a model for future interpersonal relationships?
Harlow and Harlow
Who is known for the study of 'Passive attention' and 'Active attention' in infants?
Sokolov
Which study focused on 'Habituation' as a developmental process in infants?
Lewis, Kagan, and colleagues
Who conducted a study on 'Object relation theory' emphasizing the infants' relation to an object as a model for future relationships?
Bowlby
'Strained caregiving networks in orphanages' were studied by whom?
Wolf and Wolff
What term describes a learned association between a behavior and a consequence in infants?
Contingency learning
Which method is used to assess an infant's response to an unresponsive social partner?
Still-face procedure
What does memory reactivation involve in infants?
Reactivation of previously learned behavior
What is the main purpose of the Strange Situation paradigm in assessing infants?
To measure attachment to caregivers
What aspect of learning involves specific behaviors and their order of occurrence in mother-child interactions?
Imitation learning
Which term refers to the reactivation of a previously learned behavior after extinction in infants?
Memory reinstatement
What is the difference between behavioural reactivity and regulation in response to a stressful event?
Behavioural reactivity is the initial response, while regulation is the time it takes to return to pre-stress levels
How can different domains of infant development be assessed using research methods mentioned in the text?
Through methods like habituation, preference paradigm, and operant conditioning
What distinguishes true experiments from quasi-experiments in studying infant development?
True experiments include random assignment and are high in control, while quasi-experiments are high in internal validity
How are methods like habituation, preference paradigm, and operant conditioning utilized in assessing infant development?
For assessing different domains of development
What defines joint attention as discussed in the text?
The coordination of attention with a social partner
What distinguishes between hormonal responses like epinephrine and cortisol as discussed in the text?
Epinephrine is linked to heart-rate changes, whereas cortisol is related to hormone levels
What method of data gathering is most useful for studying the unique values and traditions of a specific culture or subculture?
Ethnography
Which type of psychophysiological method is best suited for measuring brain activity during cognitive tasks?
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
Which type of data gathering method is best suited for studying the development of a single individual over time?
Case studies
Which type of validity ensures that measures are measuring what they are intended to measure?
External validity
Which type of data gathering method is best suited for studying the behavior of young children?
Naturalistic Observation
Which type of reliability ensures that measures are consistent between different raters?
Inter-rater reliability
At what age do infants typically begin to demonstrate differential fear responses to people based on gender and age?
9 months
What age range marks the point where infants have some rudimentary knowledge about themselves?
9 months
When do infants demonstrate discrimination of emotional expressions according to the text?
7 months
At what age can infants distinguish between social sounds like /pa/ and /ba/?
12 weeks
When do infants first begin to respond differently to children versus adults?
6-8 months
What age marks the point where infants interact differentially with familiar persons versus strangers?
5 weeks
What did Bowlby describe as the unique and unchangeable bond between a mother and an infant?
Attachment as a model of future relationships
According to Freud's psychoanalysis, what is the primary social bond for an infant?
Mother-infant relationship
What is emphasized in early studies according to the text?
Affectional ties with caregivers
What did Freud consider important aside from the mother-infant relationship in early development?
The Oedipus complex
How did Bowlby describe the mother-infant relationship established in the first year of life?
As the prototype of later love relations
What did Bowlby refer to as the first and strongest love object in an infant's life?
Mother-infant attachment
What is a key aspect of the Social Matrix as a Measure of the Social Network?
Identifying the needs satisfied by different members of the social network
What type of relationships might be dependent on the connection with the mother if an infant is initially isolated with only their mother?
Parental relationships
In the context of social networks, what does the intersection of caregiving, play, protection, and education with different family members help determine?
The roles individuals play and the needs that are met
What do quantitative techniques for specifying social networks primarily aim to describe?
The characteristics and relations within a network
How do close adult relationships impact infants' recovery from initial distress over absence?
They support recovery from initial distress
What feature distinguishes a middle-class couple's social kinship according to the text?
Strong ties with other couples in the same social class
What type of relationship does not involve a secure base, according to the text?
Friendship relationships
Which relationship is least enduring and most specific to particular interactions?
Acquaintance relationships
At what age do infants typically engage in inappropriate combinational activity?
17-20 months
Which type of play is most prevalent with older siblings compared to mothers?
Physical play
Which type of validity ensures that measures are measuring what they are intended to measure?
Construct validity
What type of pretense involves pretending actions directly towards others?
Object-directed pretense
What developmental aspect is supported by mothers' focus on objects and their functions during play?
Language development
What can disrupt play between a mother and infant, according to the text?
Maternal depression
Which group is more supportive of infants' emerging pretense play until about 2-3 years?
Mothers
Which type of psychophysiological method is best suited for measuring brain activity during cognitive tasks?
Electroencephalography (EEG)
How does the text describe looking in infants?
As a motor action similar to reaching
At what age can infants lift their chins from the floor when prone?
2-3 weeks after birth
What developmental milestone occurs when infants can coordinate head and eye movements to follow objects smoothly?
Prospective control of eye movements
How do infants demonstrate better prospective control at 6 months compared to 4 months?
By making anticipatory eye movements
What milestone occurs when infants can pincer-grip small objects?
10 months
What is a characteristic of infant reaching behavior when lying on their stomachs propped on one arm?
Goal-directed reaching
When do infants typically change their grip to match the size of an object?
5 months
Which visual ability is not mentioned as being relatively weak at birth but develops rapidly within 6 months or so?
Visual acuity
Which of the following statements about newborn infants' visual abilities is true according to the text?
Newborn infants can imitate facial expressions soon after birth
Which of the following is not an organizing feature of perception that is present at birth?
Innate knowledge of own face
Which of the following is a true statement about Piaget's previous beliefs about imitation?
Piaget previously thought imitation appeared at 2 years old
Which of the following statements about newborn infants' visual abilities is false according to the text?
Newborn infants have fully developed visual acuity
At what age do infants typically develop the ability to distinguish between structural support and gravity?
6-8 months
When do infants typically acquire stable control over their heads, leading to successful reaching?
4-5 months
What is the earliest age where infants can match a familiar voice with its face?
3 months
When does the perceptual narrowing effect become present in infants, similar to the speech one?
12 months
At what age can infants discriminate between human faces but not monkey faces?
12 months
When does the development of the vestibular system (sense of bodily posture and balance) and kinesthetic feedback begin in infants?
In the womb
Which of the following statements best summarizes the relationship between locomotor development and behavioral flexibility in infants?
Locomotor development is not a series of orderly stages, and more experience with balance and locomotion leads to increased behavioral flexibility
According to the 'visual cliff' experiment, which of the following best describes infants' adaptive decisions when faced with cliffs?
Infants showed poor adaptive decisions with cliffs in less familiar postures
Which of the following statements best describes the role of exploration in cognitive development for infants?
Exploration is intrinsically motivating for infants and improves cognitive function through manipulating objects, exploring surfaces, and relating objects to surfaces
Which of the following best describes the relationship between age and locomotive progress in infants?
Experience is the best predictor of locomotive progress in infants
Which of the following best describes the development of tool use in infants?
Infants show improvements in means-end reasoning in tools use, such as using sticks to draw items closer
Which of the following best describes the development of grasping in infants?
Infants can grab the correct end of a spoon and grasp appropriately by 18 months
What is the main concept discussed in the text regarding infants' eye movements?
Looking helps infants gain a sense of agency
At what age do infants typically start engaging in smooth pursuit of large, slow objects?
1 month
Which development milestone allows infants to make anticipatory eye movements while tracking objects behind a shield?
6 months
What is the significance of infants changing the grip to match the size of an object?
It demonstrates their ability to anticipate holding the object
How does improved sitting abilities impact infants' motor skills development?
Results in more sophisticated reaching and grabbing behaviors
When do infants typically begin goal-directed reaching behavior?
12-18 weeks
What type of movement marks the first goal-directed reaching behavior in infants as mentioned in the text?
Reaching while lying on back
At what age do infants typically acquire the ability to pincer-grip small objects?
10 months
How does the text describe infants' spontaneous arm movements during prenatal-1 year?
Spontaneous arm movements are aimless with no intent to exert change on the environment.
What is the role of manual exploration in infants according to the text?
Manual exploration starts as spontaneous movements without intent.
When does the development of the vestibular system and kinesthetic feedback begin in infants?
In the third trimester of pregnancy
What is the earliest age at which infants can differentiate between subtle smells?
At birth
At what age do infants typically develop clear food preferences?
At birth
What is the term used to describe an infant's ability to distinguish sounds in all of the world's languages at birth?
Native listening
When do infants typically show a preference for their mother's voice over a stranger's voice?
At birth
Which sense is fully developed at birth, allowing newborns to discriminate between subtle tastes?
Taste
At what age do infants typically become more accepting of new tastes and engage actively with food?
Birth to 3 months
When do neural pathways for pain become present in infants according to the text?
~26 weeks from conception
Which type of speech do newborn babies respond more positively to according to the text?
'Happy' speech patterns
'Motherese' or baby talk is preferred by infants due to what characteristic of this speech style?
High pitch and exaggerated intonation
Which of the following is not a visual ability that develops rapidly within the first 6 months of an infant's life?
Complete color vision
Which of the following is not an organizing feature of perception present at birth?
Complete color vision
Which of the following is not a factor that can influence the development of visual perception in infants?
Age
Which of the following is not a common research method used to assess infant development?
Surveys
Which of the following best describes the role of locomotive experience in behavioral flexibility?
Locomotive experience increases behavioral flexibility
What is the age range for normal walking onset in infants?
~11-15 months
Which of the following is a common methodological problem with the 'visual cliff' experiment?
Both of the above
Which of the following best describes the effect of exploration on cognitive function in infants?
Exploration increases cognitive function
What is the term used to describe the reactivation of a previously learned behavior after extinction in infants?
Spontaneous recovery
Which of the following is not an organizing feature of perception that is present at birth?
Color
Which of the following is NOT a developmental aspect related to infants' ability to recognize faces?
The ability to discriminate between human and animal faces
At what age do infants typically demonstrate an understanding of structural support and gravity?
6-8 months
Which of the following best describes the development of visually directed reaching in infants?
Develops after infants acquire stable control over their heads and shoulders
Which of the following best describes the relationship between age and locomotor development in infants?
Locomotor development varies widely across infants of the same age
Which of the following is NOT a factor that helps children build negotiation skills, according to the text?
Direct instruction from adults
Which of the following statements best summarizes the relationship between postural control and emotion in infants?
Infants' postural control and emotional state are closely intertwined
What is the nativist view of perception, as mentioned in the context of infants' perceptual development?
While experience is important, perceptual development is present at a surprisingly early age.
How do infants demonstrate preferences for their mother's voice over a stranger's voice?
Infants prefer their mother's voice over a stranger's voice because they have been exposed to it in the womb.
What is the main concept discussed in the text regarding infants' eye movements?
Infants' eye movements demonstrate their ability to anticipate and track objects.
When do infants typically start engaging in smooth pursuit of large, slow objects?
Infants typically start engaging in smooth pursuit of large, slow objects at 6 months.
What is the term used to describe a learned association between a behavior and a consequence in infants?
Associative learning
Which of the following is NOT a factor that helps children build negotiation skills, according to the text?
Engaging in solitary play
What type of pretense involves pretending actions directly towards others?
Socially-directed pretense
Which type of validity ensures that measures are measuring what they are intended to measure?
Construct validity
When does the development of the vestibular system (sense of bodily posture and balance) and kinesthetic feedback begin in infants?
Development begins at birth
What milestone occurs when infants can pincer-grip small objects?
Infants can manipulate objects with their fingers and thumb.
Study Notes
Play and Development
- Infants' play is encouraged by mothers to perform at or above their previous level, promoting further development.
- Peers are better at sustaining attention from infants in unstructured, physically active play.
- Mother-infant play serves a teaching function, preparing infants for future communication and stimulating their interest in objects and the environment.
Cognitive Development
- Play is essential for the acquisition of information and skills, creative thinking, and representational abilities.
- Mothers' active participation in collaborative play raises the level of expression of symbolic representation in their children's play.
- Infants use imitation to initiate pretend play with siblings, but not with mothers.
Social Understanding
- Play helps infants develop social understanding, including conveying their own feelings and seeking understanding of others' thoughts and feelings.
- Secure mother-infant relationships shape social competence in children up to 9 years old.
- Pretend play helps infants develop understanding of others' feeling states.
Functions of Play
- Play helps infants regulate arousal and express emotions.
- Mothers are better at supporting infants' ability to represent and resolve conflicts and traumas through play than peers.
- Play is associated with attention span and persistence in structured/unstructured tasks.
Language Development
- Mother-child play facilitates the use of more complex language than play with siblings or peers.
- Adults continue to facilitate language development through responsive engagement with toddlers during collaborative play.
Social Development
- Early studies of social development demonstrate that social networks are important for infant development.
- Wolf and Wolff's study (1947) showed that maternal absence leads to depression in infants.
Attentional and Cognitive Development
- William James' study (1890) showed that infants are drawn to stimuli due to interest and association (active attention).
- Robert Fantz's study (1958, 1964) showed that infants have visual perception capabilities.
Emotional Development
- Darwin's study (1872) showed that infants exhibit primary emotions (happy, disgust, sad, fear, anger, surprise) and self-conscious emotions.
- Lewis and Michalson's study (1983) demonstrated self-awareness in infants using the "rouge test".
Research Methods
- Naturalistic observation, standardized developmental tests, and interviews are used to study infant development.
- Habituation, preference paradigm, and operant conditioning are used to assess different domains of development.
Imitation and Social Functioning
- Imitation learning is used to assess social functioning in infants.
- Naturalistic parent-infant interactions and violation of expectation of behavior are used to study social development.
Socio-Emotional Behavior
- The "strange situation" paradigm is used to assess infant attachment to caregivers.
- Social referencing is used to study how infants learn to interact with others.
Stress Response
- Behavioral stress reactivity and regulation are measured in infants using physiological responses (hormone levels, heart rate changes).
- The "still-face procedure" is used to assess infant response to an unresponsive social partner.### Social Development
"Contagious" Behaviours
- Newborns cry when they hear another newborn's cry, demonstrating an empathetic response.
- By 2 years, toddlers exhibit empathy and can place themselves in another person's role.
Social Nexus
- Infants are born into a social network of people and activities that provide for their needs.
- This social network consists of:
- Family members who share a genetic pool.
- Friends and lovers who influence and are influenced by the child.
- Cultural background that forms the environment for these interactions.
Biological Functions through Social Interactions
- Social interactions influence the development of biological functions, such as:
- Sleep-wake cycles.
- Organizational processes.
Developmental Milestones
- 12 weeks: Infants can discriminate between social sounds (/pa/ and /ba/).
- 9 months: Infants have some understanding of themselves.
- 1-3 months: Infants understand the intermodal connection between people's faces and voices.
- 5 weeks: Infants interact differentially with familiar persons vs. strangers.
- 7 months: Infants demonstrate discrimination of emotional expressions.
- 3-4 months: Infants respond differently to children vs. adults.
- 6-8 months: Infants show differential fear responses to people based on gender and age.
People in the Infant's Life
- Mothers:
- Freud's psychoanalysis: the mother-infant relationship is the primary social bond.
- Bowlby's attachment theory: the mother-infant relationship is unique and establishes a model for later social relationships.
- Fathers:
- Similar to mothers in terms of care and interaction patterns.
- More likely to engage in physical playful activities.
- Siblings:
- Relationships involve competition, rivalry, and even hate, but also have positive aspects.
- Siblings can affect each other's behaviors and views of themselves.
- Older siblings tend to be more attached to younger siblings.
The Social Matrix
- A model to describe how multiple people and needs interact.
- Intersects caregiving, play, protection, nurturance, education, etc. with mother, father, grandparents, siblings, and other family members.
Attachment Styles
- The Strange Situation: a method to understand attachment styles.
- Secure attachment: seeking contact with mother during reunion.
- Insecure attachment: ambivalent, avoidant, or disorganized behaviors.
- Factors influencing attachment styles: infant temperament, sociability, and type of mother-infant interaction, as well as genetic and environmental factors.
Visual Perception
Basic Visual Abilities
- Vision is the least developed sense at birth.
- Visual acuity improves significantly by 6 months.
- Sensitivity to variations in contrast, color vision, and depth perception develop rapidly within the first 6 months.
An Organized Visual World
- Size constancy is an organizing feature of perception present at birth.
- Newborns can imitate facial expressions soon after birth.
- Functional mirror neural system at birth.
Eye-Head Control
- Eye tracking shows that looking is an active motor action.
- Looking helps infants gain a sense of agency and self.
- Still-face experiments: infants become distressed when a mother responds to their looking and facial interactions with a still face.
Manual Skills
- Many fetus and infant movements are spontaneous and aimless.
- Spontaneous arm movements persist in high frequency until 1 year.
- Reaching is intertwined with the development of postural control.
- Development of reaching and grasping: 4-12 months.
The Infant's World of Objects
- ~2 months: Infants realize that partly occluded objects are whole.
- ~5-6 months: Infants realize that 2 objects touching are separate objects.
- 6-8 months: Infants have learned about structural support and gravity.
Posture and Balance
- Development of vestibular system and kinesthetic feedback begins in the womb.
Locomotion
-
Locomotor development is not a series of orderly stages.
-
Experience better predicts locomotive progress than age or body dimension.
-
Normal age range for walking onset: 11-15 months.
-
Locomotive experience is not forced; infants start and stop at will, and crawling and walking steps are highly variable.### Locomotion and Development
-
Infants almost never automatically or immediately learn from falling; one-trial learning increases with age
-
Locomotion is a new means-end problem-solving process
-
Infants who walk take into consideration the presence or absence of a handrail and the width of a bridge when attempting to cross it (or not cross it)
Perception Theories
- Early theories emphasized an empiricist view of perception, suggesting that infants perceive very poorly and experience is vital for the development of the senses
- Research in the last 50 years has shown that the nativist view should be combined with the empiricist view, as perceptual development is present at a surprisingly early age
Touch and Sensitivity
- Touch is the first sense to develop in the womb
- Even newborns can discriminate between nipple texture and detect weight change in objects
Temperature
- Newborns can differentiate between cold and warm temperatures through mouthing or handling objects (cold/warm nipples and water)
Pain
- Neural pathways for pain are present 26 weeks from conception
- Pain can be measured in infants through facial expressions, heart rate, and crying
- Pain can be relieved by soothing stimuli, similar to adults
- Pain develops more strongly as the infant ages
Taste
- Fetuses can discriminate between sweet and noxious
- Amniotic fluid contains different tastes and provides the fetus with this sense experience
- Newborns can discriminate between sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, evident in their facial expressions
- At birth, the infant has food preferences
- Birth-3 months: infants become more active and accepting of new tastes
- In the first year, the infant will suck any suckable object, including food
- Hatred of foods doesn't develop until after 2 years
- Early infancy = intrinsically hunger-driven, later infancy = replaced by extrinsic factors (meal times and appropriate foods for certain times of the day)
Smell
- 9-10 weeks after conception: the fetus breathes in and exhales amniotic fluid, giving the fetus experience with odors
- At birth, the sense of smell is fully developed
- Newborns show clear odor preferences and aversions through facial expressions
- Infants can discriminate between subtle smells through habituation procedures
Hearing and Auditory Abilities
- Infants can hear low frequencies similar to the ability of adults
- Newborns can localize sounds and turn their head in the direction of a sound even in a room of complete darkness
- Newborn babies have preferences for their mothers' voice over a strange woman's voice
- This preference begins in the womb
- Newborn babies showed a preference for stories read to them when they were in the womb
- Infants prefer baby-directed speech or motherese (baby talk)
- Newborn babies responded more to happy speech patterns than sad or angry
- Newborn babies preferred speech patterns in their native languages that they would've been exposed to in the womb
- Speech and language perception begin in the womb
- Infants are born with the ability to discriminate between sounds in all of the world's languages
- This ability diminishes around the 1-year mark and babies become "native listeners"
Eye and Head Control
- Looking is an active, performatory action system that infants use to respond to and initiate changes in their environment
- Looking helps infants gain a sense of agency, a distinct self that can affect the environment around them
- Still-face experiments: infants become distressed when a mother responds to their looking and facial interactions with a still face
- At first, looking is opportunistic for infants because they lack the strength to lift their heads or coordination to turn their heads with their eyes
Manual Skills
- Many fetus and infant "movements" are really spontaneous, aimless movements (kicking in the womb, reaching) with no intent to exert change on the environment
- Spontaneous motor movement begins at 6 weeks gestation
- Manual exploration begins in the womb (touching umbilical cord, uterine wall, fetus's own face)
- Prenatal-1 year: spontaneous arm movements persist in high frequency (arm flailing, waving fingers, rotating arms)
- Spontaneous manual activity can become goal-oriented; infants shown a slideshow moved from neutral facial expressions during arm flailing to joyful expressions during flailing
Explore the development and functions of infant play, focusing on how infants progress from manipulating one object at a time to exploring how parts of objects relate and fit together. Learn about unitary functional activity and inappropriate combinational activity in infant play development.
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