Module 3 Chapters 6 & 7 PDF

Module 3: Chapters 6 & 7 Chapter 6: The Development of Intelligence in Infancy Piagetian Approach: The Sensorimotor Stages -four broad themes: object, space, time, causality -the goal is to explain objectification: the knowledge of 1) self and external objects as distinct, separate entities that per...

Module 3: Chapters 6 & 7 Chapter 6: The Development of Intelligence in Infancy Piagetian Approach: The Sensorimotor Stages -four broad themes: object, space, time, causality -the goal is to explain objectification: the knowledge of 1) self and external objects as distinct, separate entities that persist across 2) time and 3) space, following 4) common-sense causal rules -objectification is a major cognitive achievement that happens over 2 years postnatal (the “sensorimotor” period) -objectification happens via the development of schemes (action repertoires) -sensorimotor intelligence emerges in 6 stages, each based on the infant acquiring novel schemes and scheme combos -strong support, especially for the A-not-B error -some question if cognitive development is so heavy on motor experience, and whether infant cognition is purely sensorimotor Stage 1: Modification of reflexes (birth-1 month) -infant repeatedly engages in reflexive behaviours that are gradually adjusted to meet the needs of different circumstances -ex. Reflexive behaviours can be modified through -> actions of tongue, lips, swallowing depending on what is in their mouth -Stage 1 & 2: recognition memory -searching for the mother’s breast after the nipple is removed, continuing to look in the direction of exit after a person leaves the room -considered more passive than active Stage 2: Primary Circular Reactions (1-4 months) -emergence of circular reactions -circular reaction = a scheme that is repeated -primary circular reaction = something the infant repeats because it is interesting and helps them learn about the world -ex. Sucking -> scheme rather than a reflex as a means of exploring the environment (sucking toys etc) Stage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months) -emergence of secondary circular reactions -an activation of the infant’s schemes to produce a desired outcome or affect the environment, rather than activating a scheme for the pleasure of activating it -ex. Shaking a rattle in order to hear the sound -schemes become organized! -ex. With a rattle, looking, grasping, and shaking schemes are organized to shake the rattle -Stage 3: onset of objectification -more active search behaviours (in chronological order): -1) = visual accommodation to rapid movements, 2) interrupted prehension, 3) deferred circular reactions, 4) reconstruction of an invisible whole from a visible fraction, 5) removal of obstacles preventing perception Stage 4: Coordination of Secondary Schemes (8-12 months) -secondary circular reactions now become coordinated and intentional -implies a goal and a plan to reach that goal -means-end behaviour -ex. Pushing dad’s hand away to obtain a toy, where previously pushing the hand away wouldve been interesting enough in itself -Stage 4: A-not-B error -infant will search for a hidden object where it previously was, rather than where they watched it relocated to Stage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months) -tertiary circular reactions: behaviours that signal novelty and exploration -involves combining secondary circular reactions to explore the environment -deliberate trial-and-error actions -ex. Dropping a toy from a high chair in diff ways to see what happens -Stages 5 & 6: the completion of objectification -moving away from egocentric representation into allocentric representation -allocentric = judging where objects are in reference to external world -egocentric = judging where objects are only with reference to where their own body is Stage 6: The Beginnings of Thought - Mental Representations (18-24 months) -the child invents new means via mental representation -trying out dif combos of actions mentally and anticipating the consequences without always having to engage in the behaviours to see it through Nativist Approach -some kinds of knowledge are innate -these innate knowledges make up the core around which more diverse knowledge and cognition is built upon -to what extent must knowledge be independent of postnatal experience?? Innate Object Knowledge -3 arguments for innate object knowledge: 1) Evidence of object knowledge can be observed in very young infants 2) knowledge of persistence across occlusion must be innate (in the proposal that detection of violations of physical constraints on objects is from observing contrasting evidence), since it is rare to observe contrasting evidence for persistence across occlusion -What is this saying??? If infants must learn from observing contrasting evidence, it is unlikely they’ve observed contrasting evidence to an object still being there when it is suddenly occluded. The only “contrasting” evidence to this would be something suddenly disappearing before their eyes, like a balloon popping or bubbles in a bath disappearing. THUS, object permanence would have to be assumed to be innate! 3) There is evidence from non-human animals and anatomical specializations in humans for commonality of 1) cognitive functions across species and 2) commonality of cortical structures across humans. This suggests certain concepts are “programmed” through evolutionary pressure -there is evidence that young infants can discriminate between different numerical objects and numerical sounds before “learning” how to count properly -numerical cognition might be innate! -innate object concepts and innate numerical cognition have been speculated from certain observations, but are far from being proven true. Some studies actually suggest it is not true Perception of Partly Occluded Objects -object persistence does not appear to be innate/present at birth -without perception of occlusion, a functional object concept is impossible since infants would usually see only fragments of the whole object A Comparison of Empiricist and Nativist Views: Innate Social Knowledge? -Piaget’s view: -the ability to imitate develops slowly over time -0-7 months: infants make gestures that might seem like true imitation, but are not. If an adult imitates them, they may just be reinforcing the infant’s own behaviours; thus, the infants are just repeating themselves -infants cannot imitate actions at this point that require them to use parts of their body they cant see -8-10 months: first true imitation emerges, and the infant can produce gestures with body parts they cant see for purpose of imitation -9 months: ability to imitate novel actions appears (ex. Shaking your index finger) -18-24 months: deferred imitation occurs (stage 6 mental representations) -Meltzoff and Moore’s view: -representation is the STARTING point of infancy, rather than the end point -infants have an early developing system for recognizing and responding to others; this includes imitation -particularly tongue protrusion and mouth opening -how can infants produce imitative gestures after birth, as has been observed in some circumstances?? -Meltzoff and Moore propose active intermodal matching: -the infant can match their behaviour to that of the adult because they can detect the proprioceptive feedback (info about the movement of the infant’s own unseen facial movements), and match this info to their own imitative behaviour -M&M also reported some deferred imitation in 6-week-old infants!! -infants imitate as a way of social interaction and learning about people -M&M’s view suggests infants are born with some innate template of the human face which allows them to discriminate between people and bond with their caregiver Comparing Nativist and Empiricist Views -Piaget’s view of cognitive development = constructivism -knowledge was CONSTRUCTED from the infant's experience of and actions on the world -information-processing views -> usually offer a constructivist view of development Information-Processing Approach -with development, infants can integrate lower-level units of info with -> higher-level, more complex units which -> serve as the components for more complex units -> and so on -concepts are formed incrementally as opposed to being innate -infants have a set on cognitive, sensory, and perceptual processes that are constant across development -ex. Auditory and visual perception, memory, attention, categorization -6.5 month-old infants could perceive a causal relationship between two balls coming together and immediately bouncing off each other (simple shapes), but werent able to recognize causality with more complex shapes. As the infants got older, they could recognize causality in slightly more complex scenarios such as this -added complexity of stimuli = increased restraints; the infants had to process the more complex causal relations on a perceptual rather than conceptual level -connectionist models (computers programs designed to learn from experience) suggested that causality is learned not from innate understanding of “cause” but rather from experience, memory, and perceptual sensitivities (supported by the info-processing approach) Psychometric Approach -measures various aspects of individuals to 1) understand how development takes place and 2) compare that development to that of a comparable group of people -measurement of individual differences Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) -most frequently used test of infant development; both motor and mental -scores of motor and mental development from 6-22 months has shown a generational increase (similar to the Flynn effect in adults) -may be due to improved prenatal and early postnatal nutrition for fetus/infants -scores generally do not predict later IQ and/or development or by themselves detect infants at risk of delayed development -visual habituation/dishabituation are seen as the main contenders for predicting this!! Habituation and Dishabituation as Measures of Cognitive Development -habituation and dishabituation (habituation to a visual stimulus and subsequent recovery of attention to a novel stimulus) = an indication of brain integrity and cognitive competence -speed of habituation & amount of recovery of attention to a novel stimulus are considered measures of the speed & amount of info processing -these scores vary between individual infants and can predict later IQ (average correlation between scores and later IQ is 0.37) -significantly associated with later verbal intelligence and academic achievements Integrating the Four Approaches -all 4 approaches aim to measure intelligence and cognitive development in infants -all 4 approaches draw on each other -information-processing methods are used to test Piagetan concepts -Piagetan tasks (ex object permanence) can be incorporated into tests like the Bayley Scales The Effects of Early Experiences on the Development of Intelligence -early science claimed that mental development in infancy generally follows a genetically predetermined, species-typical growth path (a “creod”) -this would suggest that infant development is essentially impervious to intervention, either negative or positive -newer research has shown this is not the case; while children are resilient and can make a full recovery if rescued from deprivation early enough, evidence suggests that deprivation affects many areas of development past cognitive development as well. -this is an argument for the use of early intervention, at least in cases of severe deprivation Chapter 7: Categorization -categorization - how is human knowledge stored and manipulated? -scientists think our memory is organized like a neat closet; a system called a concept or category representation -concepts underlie our ability to categorize (to discriminate different things from a common class as members of the same category) -think of a filing system: info about related instances (cats) is stored in -> the same basic category (file), and info from related basic files (dogs is nested in -> larger global or superordinate categories (files) = intellectual functioning is handled by a cognitive system where objects are related to each other through a set of interconnected concepts Historical Views Briefly Considered -tradition tells us that the acquisition of concepts is a relatively late achievement in development (childhood and early adolescence) -children come to have a concept for “dog” by environmental encounters with dogs and parental labeling of “dogs” -acquired equivalence in the 1950s: research program suggesting items given the same verbal labels increase in perceived similarity, while items given different verbal labels increase in perceived dissimilarity -young children, before the onset of logical reasoning, had difficulty maintaining good grouping criteria for concepts and categorization -family resemblance view: the world is structured so that object categories are are marked or characterized by bundles of correlated attributes -this view challenges earlier thought. If a child can detect these correlations and compile them into separate categories, they may be more capable of categorization than previously thought -what does this mean??? If a child can understand that “dog” means a furry mammal that barks, wags its tail, has four legs, two ears, and walks on all fours, they may be better at categorizing different types of dogs than we thought -pre-linguistic infants might be able to categorize by this school of thought! Categorization in Infants -to study categorization in infants, researchers measure their preferences for novel stimuli. If a group of infants consistently look at one stimulus over another, it can be inferred that they can discriminate between categories on some level -familiarization/novelty preference procedure: infants are familiarized with two identical images of one pattern and then shown one of the familiarized images with a novel image. Greater looking at the novel stimulus that cant be explained by an a priori preference suggests that infants can 1) remember the familiar stimuli and 2) discriminate between the familiar and novel stimuli -modified slightly for the infants: 1) category exemplars (diff stimuli from the same category) are shown to the infant and familiarized. 2) category preference test: infants are presented with both a novel stimulus from the familiar category AND a novel stimulus from a novel category. -if infants show a preference for the novel stimulus from the novel category, it can be inferred that they have categorized the novel stimulus from the familiar family with the others!! -exemplars should be chosen with careful thought! -a control group should be used to rule out a priori/spontaneous preference for the novel stimuli without any familiarization -infants must be shown to be capable of within-category discrimination as well, not JUST between-category discrimination! -sequential touching procedure: older infants and toddlers (12-30 months). Infants are presented with a number of toys from 2 categories simultaneously. Categorization is inferred if an infant touches toys from one category in a sequence before touching members of the other category -generalized imitation: a more recently developed procedure. (9-20 months). An infant is presented with a small model of an object from one category performing an action (ex. A dog drinking water). Categorization is inferred if the infant generalizes the dog's actions to other members of the dog family, but not a member of the cat family, for example. What Kinds of Categories do Infants Represent? -objects: infants have shown categorization at global/superordinate levels (ex. animal) and more specific/basic/subordinate levels (ex. Cat and siamese cat) -space: infants have shown categorization for above vs below, between, left vs right, and particular items used in locations at specific times (ex. Bathroom or kitchen items) -attributes of objects: colour, orientation, form, facial expression -possibly support, containment, and causality of physical objects!? Current Issues Information Used to Form Category Representations -infants may use perceptual attributes to categorize (absence or presence of certain physical attributes) as well as dynamic attributes (ex. A dog can move by itself while a piece of furniture cannot). Dynamic attributes may aid in conceptual understandings of “how things work differently” vs just knowing how categories differ in appearance. -infants may often use “cues” to discriminate between categories that have a lot of overlap (dogs vs cats) -overall gestalt: infants were found in one study to be mainly using stimuli from the neck up to categorize cats vs dogs, and categorize novel stimuli into their respective familiar categories using visual information from the head. The body didnt seem to serve as a big cue in comparison to the faces. -this may not be generalizable to the real world, given dogs and cats can move and movement might serve as a cue as well -this is not always the case when contrasted with other categories. Sometimes the body DOES serve as a more important cue Category Formation vs Category Possession -the question posed is: are infants forming categories during the course of the experiment (category formation), or have these categories already been formed previously through real-world experience (category possession)??? -consider the type of experimental task used -familiarization/novelty-preference = category formation -this has been supported by evidence -infants show a spontaneous preference for female faces! Can complicate this experiment -infant attention to human stimuli may be biased towards the gender they are familiar with; suggests that pre-existing categories may influence these experiments as well -sequential touching procedure = category possession -sometimes conceptual understanding isnt for sure! If you remove the wheels from a truck or the legs from the toy animal, infants sometimes struggle again to categorize -also consider age! With more age comes more real-world experience and categorization opportunities -even still: young infants may have pre-existing info from being read books etc -consider stimulus class; young infants are more likely to have previous experience categorizing humans that categorizing animals or cars One- vs. Two-Process Frameworks for Understanding Category Representation by Infants