1. Infancy Cognitive Development
“Baby Human – Face Recognition”
2 key ideas from birth:
Born with more neurons than an adult - “Pruning”
Hyperattentive - Pay attention to everything (usually considered an inability to focus)

2. Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development
Schema
a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information
Assimilation
interpreting one’s new experience in terms of one’s existing schemas
Accommodation
adapting one’s current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information
Show students gif of accommodation and assimilation.
Students will record one example of each in notes.

3. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Typical Age
Range
Description
of Stage
Developmental
Phenomena
Birth to nearly 2 years
Sensorimotor
Experiencing the world through
senses and actions (looking,
touching, mouthing)
Object permanence
Stranger anxiety
About 2 to 6 years
About 7 to 11 years
About 12 through
adulthood
Preoperational
Representing things
with words and images
but lacking logical reasoning
Pretend play
Egocentrism
Language development
Concrete operational
Thinking logically about concrete
events; grasping concrete analogies
and performing arithmetical operations
Conservation
Mathematical transformations
Formal operational
Abstract reasoning
Abstract logic
Potential for moral reasoning
Review the stages – note all the developmental phenomena

4. Cognitive Development: Sensorimotor Stage
Object Permanence
the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived
No object permanence
A-not-B Error
Review object permanence.
Video 1 – shows baby with no indication of object permanence
Video 2 – Describes acquisition of permanence and the A-not-B error in searching for a hidden object.

5. Cognitive Development: Sensorimotor Stage
Circular Reactions
Primary – baby accidentally does something and repeats simply because it feels good
Saliva bubbles, waving arms
Secondary – similar to primary, but involve objects in the environment
Example
Tertiary – infant devises new ways to act on objects to produce interesting results.
Tertiary circular reactions represent beginning of curiosity.

6. Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development
Baby Mathematics
Shown a numerically impossible outcome, infants stare longer (Wynn, 1992)
1. Objects placed
in case.
2. Screen comes
up.
3. Object is removed.
4. Impossible outcome:
Screen drops, revealing
two objects.
4. Possible outcome:
one object.

7. Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development
Scale Error in the Judy DeLoache Study
Found 18 – 30 month olds commonly make
Scale Errors

8. Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development
Scale Error
Typical scale error ages
Not present in young or old children – window of experimentation.

9. Cognitive Development
Self-Awareness – shopping cart study
Animism – belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and mental lives.
Preoperational
Seriation – Ability to arrange objects in ascending or descending order based on characteristic like length or weight
Concrete operations
Much later than people think
Animism – ex: child tells you not to hurt the “baby.”

10. Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development
Conservation
the principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects
Preoperational vs. Concrete operational
Number, Mass, Length, Volume, Area, Weight
Note the difference forms of conservation
-conservation not fully acquired until Concrete Operations

11. Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development
Egocentrism
the inability of the preoperational child to take another’s point of view
Example in Child’s answers:
Why does the sun shine? To keep me warm.
Why is there snow? For me to play in.
Why is the grass green? Its my favorite color.
Have a 4 year old close her eyes and ask her if you can still see her. Her answer?
How many siblings? vs. how many kids do your parents have?
Child must develop theory of mind to go beyond this egocentric perspective.

12. Social Development
Health, happiness, and even survival depends on forming meaningful, effective relationships with family peers, and later, on the job (Zimbardo, 2007)
Nature brings our 1st step in this direction – a biological predisposition
to smile.
Smile Reflex – infant smile triggered by voices at 3 weeks, faces at 5-6 weeks.
Showing teeth is positive to humans (unique among mammals – what does it mean when a dog shows teeth?)

13. Social Development: Temperament
Temperament – An individual’s characteristic manner of behavior or reaction
Assumed to have a strong genetic basis.
10-15% babies “born shy”, 10-15% “born bold”
Nature / Nurture connection – which temperaments encourage interaction?
Lev Vygotsky – social-cognitive development theory includes “zone of proximal development”
Zone of proximal development is the difference between what the baby can do with help and what the baby can do without any help or guidance.
Baby can develop cognitively and socially at both ends of this spectrum, but if social development lags (I.e. baby is not appreciated due to “bad” temperament), cognitive development will also lag.

14. Social Development Attachment an emotional tie with another person
shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and displaying distress on separation
Develops in phases over 1st 24 months.
Once attachments are formed, fears and anxieties also appear.
Attachment is the basis of social interaction.
First attachment is usually with mother, can be father or another significant caretaker.
Autistic children can also show attachment to an object.

15. Social Development Stranger Anxiety Separation Anxiety
fear of strangers that infants commonly display
beginning by about 8 months of age
Separation Anxiety
Distress the infant shows when object of attachment leaves
Peaks between 14 and 18 months

16. “The Strange Situation”
Mary Ainsworth – Attachment studies
Displays attachment
Secure Attachment (Ideal) – 60%
Children show some distress when parent leaves, seek contact at the reunion, explore when parent gone, play and greet when parent present.
Insecure Attachments lack 1 or more of these traits
Behaviorists: What should the parent do in this scenario (assuming its real)?
Point out Strange Situation appendix on back of notes – explains the experiment procedures, as well as additional information regarding secure and insecure attachments.
If the parents are leaving the child somewhere (child care) and it starts crying, coming back reinforces the tantrum behavior.

17. Social Development 20 40 60 80
100
3.5
5.5
7.5
9.5
11.5
13.5 29
Percentage
of infants
who cried
when their
mothers left
Age in months
Day care
Home
Groups of infants left by their mothers in a unfamiliar room (Kagan, 1976).

18. Origins of Attachment Critical Period Imprinting – Konrad Lorenz
an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development
Imprinting – Konrad Lorenz
the process by which certain animals
form attachments during a critical
period very early in life
2 main keys to attachment”
Familiarity – displayed by Lorenz imprinting
Body contact – displayed by Harlow’s monkeys.
Imprinting – 1st moving thing a goose sees is normally mother (are you my mother?)
Found that birds imprint to many things (although own species works best) – box on wheels, a bouncing ball
Once formed, imprinting is difficult to reverse.
Does not work in the same way with humans, but children do prefer familiarity
Mere Exposure Effect – humans develop fondness for that which they’ve known.

19. Origins of Attachment Harlow’s Surrogate Mother Experiments
Monkeys preferred contact with the comfortable cloth mother, even while feeding from the nourishing wire mother
Demonstrates facets of attachment:
-provides a base to explore – children with secure attachments leave parent better to explore the world around them, knowing they can go back.
-provides a safe haven to seek comfort if exploration results in anxiety.

20. Social Development
Monkeys raised by artificial mothers were terror-stricken when placed in strange situations without their surrogate mothers.

21. Social Development Basic Trust (Erik Erikson) Self-Concept
a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy
said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers
Self-Concept
a sense of one’s identity and personal worth
Introduce Erik Erikson – covered in depth later, his 1st stage is appropriate to mention here. Trust vs. Mistrust has lasting effects on social development.
Infancy’s major social achievement is attachment. Childhood’s is the development of a self-concept.
Self awareness – mirror images fascinate children from 6 months – only after 18 months do they know it is “me”
Dab lipstick on the face experiment – child is aware when she reaches for her own face.

22. Social Development: Child-Rearing Practices
Authoritarian
parents impose rules and expect obedience
“Don’t interrupt.” “Why? Because I said so.”
Permissive
submit to children’s desires, make few demands, use little punishment
Authoritative
both demanding and responsive
set rules, but explain reasons and encourage open discussion
Neglectful

23. Social Development: Child-Rearing Practices