Infant Speech and Song Unit: Cognitive Psychology PDF

**INFANT SPEECH AND SONG UNIT: COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY** **Equipotentiality and invariance hypothesis on brain development and language** Equipotentiality is when there is an equal chance that language abilities could develop on either side of the brain, and the invariance hypothesis suggests that th...

**INFANT SPEECH AND SONG UNIT: COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY** **Equipotentiality and invariance hypothesis on brain development and language** Equipotentiality is when there is an equal chance that language abilities could develop on either side of the brain, and the invariance hypothesis suggests that the left side of the brain is hardwired to be used for language abilities. Evidence for the invariance hypothesis includes when infants hear speech sounds, the left side of their brain activates, when kids get aphasia, its most commonly their left side of the brain that is damaged, and when infants babble, their right side of their mouth usually opens, which is controlled by their left side of their brain since the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body. **Critical time periods for language acquisition** A critical period is a time window in biological development where a certain ability MUST be acquired. An example of this in animals is imprinting in birds, and language in humans. An example of a language critical period is Genie, who was only around her mother and grandma for the first 13 years of her life, causing her language to be hindered. She missed the critical time window in which normal language abilities should be acquired, and though she can match words to meaning, she does not have any proper syntax (grammar). An experimental challenge may be that Genies language acquisition troubles may be from additional personal aspects going through her life, as she was severely neglected as a child. **4 Stages of babbling in infants** Quasiresonant babbling is the first stage of babbling, happening in the 1^st^ few weeks, characterized by whiny vocalizations. Fully resonant vowel stage is the second stage of babbling in around 3-4 months, consisting of vowel sounds. The third stage of babbling is marginal syllable, happening around 4-8 months, and being characterized by a slow transition between consonant and vowel sounds. The final stage of babbling is called caronical syllable happening at 9 months, and is characterized by typical sequences of syllables (for example, dadada tatata). **Gesture in infants and the noun explosion** Tonic gestures refer to when a meaning is directly mapped to a signal, or a gesture. Some examples include the "give" gesture, or the "all gone" gesture, showing that you do not have anything left. The noun explosion in infants is the rapid learning of words, and it usually happens at around age 2. **3 Ways to measure infant speech** **perception!** The three ways to measure infant speech perception are the looking time preference procedure, the head turn procedure, and the habituation procedure. The looking time preference procedure is when an infant looks at a stimulus for a long time, this means that they prefer that stimulus. The head turn procedure is when an infant turns their head, it means that they detected a change in auditory stimulus, and success in the infant identifying a change in stimulus is often rewarded with a positive stimulus (like a toy rabbit). The habituation procedure is used to see if a infant detects a change in stimulus based on looking times. An infants looking times are going to decrease for sounds they are used to hearing like "dadada", however looking times will spike up if they detect a new stimulus like "dadaBAdada". **Infant directed communication** Infant directed communication is when we change how we speak when we communicate with infants. Infant directed speech, however, is where we change our voice for infants, like the pitch, or even slowing down our words. **How does IDS affect language aqquisition?** The two ways that IDS affects language aqquisition are exxagerating different sounds, and clairifying important sounds. For the first study (exxagerating different sounds), infants were put through a habituation phase (sh, a , o), and a test phase (s, a , o). Researchers also studies how the caregivers variability in sh and s sounds may impact the infants language aqquisition. Results of the study showed that kids were more likely to look in the direction of the new sequence of words (s, a , o) than the habituated words (sh, a , o).So caregivers that were able to make a bigger distinction between the s and sh sounds did influence learning acquisition in infants. **2 kinds of amnesia** Amnesia can last anywhere from minutes, to days, to years, and can even be permanent. Retrograde amnesia is usually due to brain damage, and hinders the ability to recall past events. For example, Dr. Wrights friend was skiing and fell, and forgot what they had previously done that day. Anterograde amnesia is the disability to form new long-term memories, and an example of anterograde amnesia is patient H.M, who cured his epilepsy by removing his hippocampus, however the hippocampus is crucial in memory, so once it was gone he could not form any new long term memories. Even though his long-term memory was affected, he could use his short-term memory if he tried hard enough. **2 approaches to mental imagery** The first test is called the visual mental imagery approach, and requires you to imagine something in your mind, like a sunset for example. Questions like "how vivid is the sunset in your mind from a scale of 1-5?". The second approach requires a mental imagery task where you complete a paper folding task and are asked questions like "where should the holes be on the paper?". This tests the individual\'s spatial imagery! **Kinds of aphantasia!** There are aphantasia, phantasia, and hyperphantasia. Aphantasia is the disability to imagine anything in your mind, though sometimes imagery can come to you in dreams. Aphantasia can be caused by damage to the brain, or sometimes one is born with it. Phantasia is when one can imagine an image, however, it is not very weak but not very vivid. Hyperphantasia is the ability to see very vivid mental imagery. **The mental imagery debate!!! \