Six substages of the sensorimotor stage Reflexes Primary circular reactions Secondary circular reactions Coordination phase Tertiary circular reactions Symbolic problem solving

Reflexes substage First month of life First display of assimilation and accommodation Basic cognitive schemas are formed (e.g., sucking on objects is pleasurable) Imitate facial gestures, but only in the first month—may be an attempt to elicit social contact & ensure survival (reflexive smiling) Newborn is completely tied to immediate present—no memory or planning for future

Primary circular reactions Ages 1-4 months First nonreflexive schemas emerge as baby discovers by chance that responses they make are satisfying and worthy of repetition These acts are always centered around infant’s own body Example: making cooing sounds, sucking thumbs

Secondary circular reactions 4-8 months Infants discover by chance that they can make interesting things happen to external objects (make rubber duck quack) These reactions are repeated because they’re pleasurable. Piaget thought secondary circular reactions represented the infant’s sense of his own boundaries—realizes that he’s separate from the rest of the world First beginnings of object permanence

Coordination phase 8-12 months Infant shows truly planned responding to solve simple problems First display of voluntary imitation of novel responses Can coordinate different senses (smell, sight, touch, etc.) to solve a problem Example: lifting a pillow to retrieve pacifier

Tertiary circular reactions 12-18 months Infants start to experiment with objects to see what will happen Lots of trial and error as infant discovers on his own what works to create a desired response and what doesn’t Emergence of true curiosity

Symbolic problem solving 18-24 months Children begin to internalize their behavioral schemas to construct mental symbols or images Capable of inner experimentation—solving problems mentally without overt trial-and-error Uses symbols to represent real objects, and recognizes that the symbol is different from the real object Capable of make-believe play and deferred imitation

Object permanence The understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight Unclear when this develops. A 1-4 month-old doesn’t have it; a 4-8 month old will look for partially concealed objects but not totally concealed ones. Babies between 8-12 months still do NOT have a complete grasp of object permanence. They make errors.

A-not B-error Between 8-12 months A child looks for the object where it was last found, not where it was last seen. Child acts as if his own behavior determines where the object will be found (thinks that because she found it in place A the first time, it will still be there, even though she saw her mother put it under place B)

Object permanence between 12-18 months of age Clear improvement in this age range Infant will look for objects where they were last seen; they don’t make the A-not B-error Still don’t understand invisible displacements (if the toy goes completely out of view, then they’ll look for it where they last saw it…e.g, in your hand)

Deferred Imitation The ability to reproduce a previously seen action at some later time. Piaget loved this concept; he saw it as a highly adaptive activity He thought this was only present during the last substage of sensorimotor phase (symbolic problem solving) Actually, it seems to be present at 6 weeks of age in a primitive form. Child isn’t proficient at it until 14 months or so.

Learning Recall the three types of learning from section 1 Classical conditioning Operant conditioning Observational learning (modeling)

Memory It’s now known that infants (3 months old) can remember a variety of complex associations and visual sequences; these memories can last for 3 months and even up to 9 months or more. Studies show that very long-term retention of memories is the exception, not the rule. The nature of infant memories is highly controversial.

Rovee-Collier’s paradigm (1987, 2004) Baby placed in a crib underneath an elaborate mobile; ankle is tied to the mobile so that when the baby kicks, the mobile moves. Baby comes back weeks later with foot untied; question is: Will the baby kick? Findings: Baby will kick but only if the mobile is exactly the same as it was before. Rovee-Collier says that infants as young as 2 months can remember some experiences through 1 ½ to 2 years of age.

Critics of Rovee-Collier Critics say the babies are showing only implicit memory (memory of skills and routine procedures that are performed automatically; no conscious recollection) not explicit memory (conscious memory of facts and experiences). Most researchers find that babies do not have explicit memory until the 2nd half of the first year; it improves dramatically during the 2nd year of life. Most infant memories are fragile and short-lived, except for memories of perceptual-motor actions.

Infantile amnesia The inability to remember events that occurred before the age of 2-3 Highly debated; some researchers claim that people remember birth and intrauterine experiences. No scientific evidence for this. Could be because the prefrontal lobes aren’t matured enough to store memories properly. Could have to do with language—before the age of 2-3, we don’t have enough language skills to store memories.

Autobiographical memories Memories of your special, one-time events in your own life that have personal meaning for you Must have a well-developed sense of self for autobiographical memories to be stored. Self-awareness doesn’t occur until 18-24 months, which is the earliest time that scientists believe autobiographical events can be recalled. Must be able to integrate personal experiences into a meaningful life story Adult must talk to child about the event to solidify the memory.

Infant Intelligence Tests Best-known test is the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, for children between 1 month and 3 ½ years. Includes a Mental Scale and Motor scale, and you get a score similar to IQ score. Correlates poorly with adult IQ; variations of 10-20 points or more IQ is NOT a stable inborn ability, although it is strongly genetically influenced. It changes with experience and age.

Infant Intelligence Tests cont. It’s not easy to get scores (called “developmental quotients”) that reflect an infant/toddler’s true ability. Child is often distracted, bored, or tired. They predict better for extremely low-scoring babies. Today, they’re used mainly for identifying children whose very low scores may mean they have developmental delays and need early intervention. Piaget’s object permanence tasks predict later IQ better than “infant IQ” tests.

Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence Increasingly being used since the 1990s Focuses on infant’s ability to process information (e.g., encoding attributes of objects, detecting similarities/differences in objects). Uses the amount of time babies take to look at a new object vs. familiar one to estimate their intelligence. Fagan test IS correlated with measures of intelligence in older children.

Habituation vs. dishabituation Evidence is mounting that measures of habituation & dishabituation (recovery of a habituated response after a change in stimulation) predict intelligence in childhood and adolescence. Quicker habituation and greater amounts of looking in dishabituation reflect more efficient information processing. Average correlation between measures at 3-12 months and measures in childhood & adolescence: .37.