1. PSYC 206
Lifespan Development
Bilge Yagmurlu

2. Chapter Overview Temperament Physical Growth Sensing the Environment
The Organization of Behavior
Becoming Coordinated with the Social World

3. I. Temperament Individual differences in infants Traits
both genetic and environmental bases
Traits
Consistent across situations
Some stability over time 3

4. Temperament
constitutionally based individual differences in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity and self-regulation”
constitution: biological make-up
interaction of heredity, maturation and experience
It refers to general disposition and overall behavioral style 4

5. Classifying Temperament
Chess and Thomas classified babies as one of following:
Easy babies: regularity of behavior, even-tempered, intense mood is rare, adaptable
Difficult babies: active, irritable and irregular in habits
Slow-to-warm-up babies: Inactive, moody, mild negative response 5

6. Temperament Problems with general profiles:
Example: Difficult temperament
carries a negative value-laden overtone
too global and doe snot help us to understand specific roles of particular temperaments 6

7. Classifying Temperament
Rothbart and colleagues’ 3 dimensions:
Reactivity: level of arousal or activeness
Affect: dominant emotional tone
Self-regulation: control 7

8. Measurement of Temperament
Lab Observation
expose children to strangers or toys and note child’s responses. Widely used and reliable measure 8

9. Negative & Positive emotionality
Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (LAB-TAB; Goldsmith et al., 1996, Kochanska et al., 2000)
Negative & Positive emotionality
Effortful Control

10. FEAR Child is shown a toy car that is
covered with fearful mask and wig
The fearful object is also moved
forward and back for three times
Child is asked to approach to the object and touch
Coding: His approach and withdrawal behavior to commands, latencies to the first approach to the toy and the first approach to the experimenter, latency to first touch to the toy.

11. ANGER
TRANSPARENT BOX
Child is asked to choose one of three toys to play with
Preferred toy is locked in a transparent box by the experimenter
Given the wrong keys, Child is asked to try to open the box.
After two minutes, experimenter pretends as if she remembers the place of the right key and opens the box with that key. At the end, child is let to play with the toy.
Coding:
Child’s anger reflected upon facial, bodily and verbal expressions
Intensity of anger
Latency to first expression of anger

12. ATTENTION TASK
The child is asked to find an M&M that is hidden somewhere in a toy house
There are 3 trials one of each lasts 90 seconds

13. Measurement of Temperament
Lab Observation
Some problems/limitations:
researcher can examine limited range of behaviors
lab setting may elicit atypical expressions of temperament
child’s behaviors can be influenced by transient factors such as mood 13 13

14. Measurement of Temperament
Questionnaire
Researcher asks adults who know the child well
Provides rich source of data on child’s temperament 14

15. INFANT BEHAVIOR QUESTIONNAIRE M. K. Rothbart
Temperament dimensions:
Activity Level
Smiling and Laughter
Distress and Latency to Approach Sudden or Novel Stimuli
Distress to Limitations
Soothability
Duration of Orienting

16. INFANT BEHAVIOR QUESTIONNAIRE M. K. Rothbart
Activity Level Child’s gross motor activity, including movement of arms and legs, squirming and locomotor activity.
Smiling and Laughter Smiling or laughter from the child in any situation.
Distress and Latency to Approach Sudden or Novel Stimuli The child’s distress to sudden changes in stimulation and the child’s distress and latency of movement toward a novel, social, or physical object.

17. INFANT BEHAVIOR QUESTIONNAIRE M. K. Rothbart
Distress to Limitations Child’s fussing, crying, or showing distress while: a) waiting for food; b) refusing a food; c) being in a confining place or position; d) being dressed or undressed; or e) being prevented access to an object toward which the child is directing her/his attention.
Soothability Child’s reduction of fussing, crying, or distress when soothing techniques are used by the caretaker of child.
Duration of Orienting The child’s vocalization, looking at, and/or interaction with a single object for extended periods of time when there has been no sudden change in stimulation.

18. Temperament Interview with Thomas and Chess on what temperament is:
Temperament in practice: using temperament concepts to prevent behavioral problems:

19. Chapter Overview Temperament Physical Growth Sensing the Environment
The Organization of Behavior
Becoming Coordinated with the Social World 19

20. Physical Growth In 12 weeks, infants Gain about 6 pounds
Grow more than 4 inches
Expanding head circumference
Growth charts:
Show the average values of height, weight, and other measures of a normally developing infant.

21. Growth Chart

22. Brain Development
The brain at birth contains most of the neurons it will ever have
The human brain grows from an average weight of 400 gm at birth to gm at 12 months
Will grow four times larger by adulthood

23. A nerve cell, or a neuron, consists of many different parts.
Brain Development
A nerve cell, or a neuron, consists of many different parts. 23 23

24. Neuron
Cell Body: Life support center of the neuron. Keeps the neuron alive and determines whether it will fire.
Dendrites: Branching extensions at the cell body. Receive messages from other neurons and transmit towards the cell body
Axon: Long single extension of a neuron. Extending fiber that conducts impulses away from the cell body and transmits to other cells.
Myelin sheath: Fatty insulation that may surround the axon of a neuron. Speeds up messages through neurons.
Terminal branches of axon: Branched endings of an axon that transmit messages to other neurons. 24 24

25. Neuron
Vary in kind and length (1/4 mm. to 1 m.)

26. Brain Development Myelination
Insulates axons and speeds transmission of impulses 26

27. Brain Development Growth in brain size as a result of:
Neuronal connections
Synaptogenesis: process of synapse formation
Synapse: Site where a nerve impulse is transmitted from one neuron to another.
"neurons that fire together, wire together"

29. Central Nervous System
Brain, brain stem and spinal cord

30. Central Nervous System
Spinal cord: extends from below the waist to the base of the brain.
Brain stem: controls reflexes as blinking and sucking and vital functions such as breathing.
Relatively more mature at birth
Enable movement, responses to stimuli etc.

31. Central Nervous System
Cerebral cortex: outermost layer and center for perception of patterns, decision making, speech, planning and execution of complex motor sequences
Less mature at birth: fewer dendrites and less myelin. 31

32. Central Nervous System
The stepwise sequence of neurodevelopment is genetically predetermined and not alterable by environmental forces.
It proceeds from lower to higher brain centres, from the brain stem to the cerebral cortex.

33. Lobes of the Brain
Frontal Lobe – personality, planning, emotion, problem solving
Parietal Lobe - touch
Temporal Lobe – hearing
Occipital Lobe - vision 33

34. Association Areas ¾ of the human cortex found in all lobes
integrate and link inputs with stored memories
¾ of the human cortex
found in all lobes 34

37. Development of the Brain
Two major classes of development:
aspects of environmentally dependent maturational process of the brain
Experience-expectant process
Experience-dependent process 37 37

38. Development of the Brain
Experience-expectant process
Under genetic controls, occur in any environment
Exuberant synoptogenesis: a rapid growth in synaptic density that prepares the brain for a vast range of possible experiences.
There is sequential growth, extraordinary proliferation, and overproduction of axons, dendrites, and synapses in different regions.
During the first 2 years of life, there is sequential growth, extraordinary proliferation, and overproduction of axons, dendrites, and synapses in different regions of the brain.
This process is genetically determined.

39. Development of the Brain
Experience-expectant process
Certain experiences are essential for orderly brain development to proceed: Species-universal experiences are required for fine-tuning neural connections.

40. Development of the Brain
The determination of which synaptic connections will persist is environmentally regulated, being dependent on information received by the brain.
Synaptic pruning: selective dying off of nonfunctional synapses
Synaptic connections that are not utilized gradually disappear.

41. Experience and Development
Exuberant synapto-genesis
Synaptic pruning 41

42. Experience-expectant development
Overproduction of synapses: synapses anticipate the experiences
Environment acts as a guide for the elimination of unused synapses

43. Experience-expectant development
Hubel and Wiesel (1979):
By temporarily blocking the visual input to one eye of a cat during a critical period of development, irreversible structural and functional changes are produced in the brain's visual cortex, leading to permanent impairment of vision in that eye.

44. Experience-expectant development
Scarr (1993): Profoundly deaf children do not continue to vocalise in later infancy
Species-typical auditory experiences, which are required for the development of language, fail to reach the appropriate brain area.
Example: evolution of parts of the brain responsible for language.

45. Development of the Brain
Experience-dependent process
Initiated in response to experience: generate new synapses in response to the environmentally determined experiences.
The experiences are not predetermined, nor are synapses anticipating the experiences at any particular stage.
Allows to learn from new experience. 45

46. Development of the Brain
Experience-dependent process
Example: work on enriched environments by Rosenzweig and colleagues: increased weight of cortex, larger cell bodies, more synaptic connections, increased rates of learning.
Impoverished
environment
Rat brain
cell
Enriched 46

47. Development of the Brain
Experience-expectant process
Species-universal experiences are required for fine-tuning neural connections. When expected experiences lack in sensitive periods, then the brain will fail to develop normally.
Experience-dependent process
Have evolved to allow the organism to take advantage of new and changing information in the environment. 47 47

48. Sensing the Environment
Newborns’ sensory systems
Variations in functioning show importance of systems for survival
Indications of sensation: perceiving an object or event
Habituation: attention to novelty decreases with repeated exposure (becomes bored and stops attending)
Dishabituation: Interest is renewed after the infant perceives a change in the stimulus

49. How to measure sensory reactions?
Measure reaction to stimuli
Does a baby turn her head in the direction of a sound?
Habituation paradigm: relies on infants’ tendency to pay less and less attention to a repeatedly presented stimulus (habituation)
If the stimulus changes in a way that makes it seem new to the infant, he will once again pay attention (dishabituation)

50. Early Sensory Capacities
as opposed to the views of earlier century thinkers (e.g., John Locke’s tabula rasa), babies enter the world with some well-organized behaviors
sensory capacities: visual, auditory, taste-related, and tactile capacities are all functioning but, some capacities are more mature than others
looking, sucking, and crying are 3 behaviors that, unlike reflexes, are often not elicited by a discrete, identifiable stimulus

51. Early Sensory Capacities

52. Hearing Sensitivity to phonemes
2-month-olds can perceive distinctions used in all the world’s languages
Not only from the native language, but also from other languages
Japanese babies will perceive the difference between /r/ and /l/, even though adult speakers cannot
By about 6 to 8 months of age, only the sounds made in the language(s) they hear. ability to distinguish nonnative sounds diminishes

53. Hearing
Infants can distinguish the sound of the human voice from other kinds of sounds, and seem to prefer it.
Are particularly interested in speech with the high pitch and slow, exaggerated pronun- ciation (i.e., “baby talk”)
Evidence that by 2 days old, some babies would respond more to the language that has been spoken around them than a foreign language

54. Vision Newborns are very nearsighted
Visual acuity for one foot away
They can see at 20 feet what a normal adult vision can see at 400 feet to 800 feet
color vision: at birth, they can distinguish between red and green
adult-like functioning in all three types of cones (color-sensitive receptors for red, blue, and green) is present by 2 months of age

55. Vision Newborns are able to: scan their surroundings
perceive patterns and distinguish among forms. perception of contrast
show a preference for faces
distinguish their mother’s face

56. Vision: an artist’s conception

57. Perception of Faces
Infants show a preference for patterned stimuli over plain stimuli
Babies as young as 9 minutes old will look longer at a schematic moving face than a scrambled one

58. Visual Preferences of Infants58

59. Taste and Smell Responses to Sweet tastes and smells
Example: breast milk
Calming effect
Pain relief
Sour, bitter, and salty tastes

60. Taste sensitivity to taste may be present before birth
when saccharin was added to the amniotic fluid of a near-term fetus, increased swallowing was observed
newborns prefer sweet substances than plain water-- suck longer with fewer pauses

61. Intermodal Perception
The simultaneous perceiving of an object or event by more than one sensory system

62. The Organization of Behavior
Behavioral organization is important for
Interacting more effectively and adaptively with their surroundings
Increasing physical control and coordination
Smiling in response to the smiles of others
Performing deliberate actions

63. The Organization of Behavior
Reflexes
Highly organized specific involuntary responses to specific types of stimulation
Building blocks for action
Some are adaptive, temporarily or permanently
Unusual patterns may be informative about development

65. Grasping Reflex
When a finger or some other object is pressed against the baby’s palm, the baby’s fingers close around it.
Disappears in 3-4 months; replaced by voluntary grasping.

66. Piaget’s Theory of Developing Action
Sensorimotor Stage
Perspective
Infants gain knowledge largely by coordinating sensory perceptions and simple motor responses

67. Piaget’s Theory Sensorimotor Stage:
Substage 1 ( months): Exercising reflex schemas.
infants learn to control and coordinate inborn reflexes
Substage 2 ( months): Primary circular reactions. New forms of behaviors appears.
accommodation first appears, with infants’ prolonging pleasant sensations arising from reflex actions

68. Becoming Coordinated with the Social World
Infants’ survival depends on:
Responsive caregivers
Coordinate their own actions with those of caregivers
Infant to caregiver
Caregiver to infant
Sleeping and feeding

69. Crying Primitive means of communication The effects of infant crying:
Evokes a strong emotional response in adults
Warning that something may be wrong
Certain distinctive patterns may indicate difficulties