1. Chapter 5 INFANCY

2. INFANCY
Sensation: the detection of sensory stimulation
Perception: the interpretation of what is sensed

3. THE NEWBORN’S READINESS FOR LIFE
Newborn Reflexes – involuntary, automatic response to a stimuli
Survival – adaptive value, satisfy needs;
breathing, sucking, swallowing
Primitive – not as useful, disappear 1st year
Babinski, swimming, grasping

4. Table 5.1 Major Reflexes in Full-Term Neonates

5. Table 5.1 Major Reflexes in Full-Term Neonates (continued)

6. THE NEWBORN’S READINESS FOR LIFE
Infant States: six levels of arousal
Pass through predictable pattern of states
70% of time asleep
Developmental Change in Infant States
Overall sleep decreases, duration of episodes increases
REM – declines; less need for stimulation while asleep (Autostimulation theory)
SIDS – leading cause of infant mortality

7. Table 5.2 Infant States of Arousal

8. THE NEWBORN’S READINESS FOR LIFE
Functions and Course of Crying
State communicating distress
Developmental changes in crying
Shrill and nonrhythmic may indicate brain damage
Tends to diminish after first 3 months – maturation of brain, increased responsiveness from parents

9. METHODS USED TO STUDY THE INFANT’S SENSORY/PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCES
The Preference Method
Discriminate between stimuli
The Habituation Method
Familiarity leads to a lack of response
Dishabituation – response to new stimuli

10. METHODS USED TO STUDY THE INFANT’S SENSORY/PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCES
The Method of Evoked Potentials
Present a stimulus and record brain waves
Discrimination of stimuli produces different brain wave patterns
The High-Amplitude Sucking Method
Rate of sucking on a pacifier controls the presentation of a stimuli, shows preference and discrimination

11. Figure 5.3 An EEG cap is used to place electrodes around the baby’s head to record electrode activity at appropriate places on the baby’s brain.

12. Figure 5.4 The high-amplitude sucking apparatus.

13. INFANT SENSORY CAPABILITIES
Hearing
Discriminate sounds based on loudness, duration, direction, and frequency
Prefer mother’s voice to other women
Sensitive to phonemes, even better than adults (if sounds are not part of the adult’s spoken language)
Hearing loss can adversely affect development (often due to ear infections)

14. INFANT SENSORY CAPABILITIES
Taste and Smell
Prefer sweet over sour, bitter, or salty
Avoid unpleasant odors
Recognize mother by smell (if breast-fed)
Touch, Temperature, and Pain
Touch enhances development, allows exploration of environment
Sensitive to temperature
Sensitive to pain – even at 1 day

15. INFANT SENSORY CAPABILITIES
Vision
Least mature sense
Detect changes in brightness
Can see patterns
See colors, although discrimination is good by 2-3 months
Poor acuity, see as well as adults by 12 months

16. Table 5.3 The Newborn’s Sensory Capabilities

17. VISUAL PERCEPTION IN INFANCY
Perception of Patterns and Forms
Early Pattern Perception (0 to 2 Months)
Prefer high contrast patterns
Prefer moderately complex patterns
Prefer patterns that move

18. Figure 5. 5 Fantz’s test of young infants’ pattern preferences
Figure 5.5 Fantz’s test of young infants’ pattern preferences. Infants preferred to look at complex stimuli rather than at a simpler black-and-white oval. However, the infants did not prefer the facelike figure to the scrambled face. ADAPTED FROM FANTZ, 1961.

19. Figure 5. 6 What patterns look like to the young eye
Figure 5.6 What patterns look like to the young eye. By the time these two checkerboards are processed by eyes with poor vision, only the checkerboard on the left may have any pattern left to it. Poor vision in early infancy helps to explain a preference for moderately complex rather than highly complex stimuli. ADAPTED FROM BANKS & SALAPTEK, 1983.

20. VISUAL PERCEPTION IN INFANCY
Later Form Perception (2 months – 1 year)
More sensitive to movement
Begin to perceive objects as whole forms
Use subjective contours
Results from interaction between vision, biological maturation, and learning

21. Figure 5. 7 Perceiving objects as wholes
Figure 5.7 Perceiving objects as wholes. An infant is habituated to a rod partially hidden by the block in front of it. The rod is either stationary (A) or moving (B). When tested afterward, does the infant treat the whole rod (C) as “familiar”? We certainly would, for we could readily interpret cues that tell us that there is one long rod behind the block and would therefore regard the whole rod as familiar. But if the infant shows more interest in the whole rod (C) than in the two rod segments (D), he or she has apparently not been able to use available cues to perceive a whole rod. ADAPTED FROM KELLMAN & SPELKE, 1983.

22. Figure 5.8 By 3 months of age, infants are perceiving subjective contours such as the “square” shown here. ADAPTED FROM BERTENTHAL, CAMPOS, & HAITH, 1980.

23. VISUAL PERCEPTION IN INFANCY
Perception of Three-Dimensional Space
Size Constancy
Present at birth, not fully developed until 10 – 11 YEARS old
Movement cues important (1-3 months)
Binocular cues important (3-5 months)
Pictorial Cues (monocular)
develop by age 6-7 months

24. Figure 5.10 If infants are sensitive to the pictorial cue of interposition, they should reliably reach for the “closest” area of a visual display (left side in this example). Seven-month-olds show this reaching preference, whereas 5-month-olds do not. FROM GRANRUD & YONAS, 1984.

25. VISUAL PERCEPTION IN INFANCY
Development of Depth Perception
Use of visual cliff
Most infants at 6½ months (crawling) perceived depth
2 month-olds showed decrease in heart rate – a sign of interest, but not fear
Experience through motor development is important

26. Figure 5.11 An infant at the edge of the visual cliff.

27. INTERMODAL PERCEPTION
Are the Senses Integrated at Birth?
Yes: reaching for objects that are seen
Yes: looking in the direction of sounds
Yes: expecting to see source of sound, or to feel objects that were reached for

28. INTERMODAL PERCEPTION
Development of Intermodal perception
1-month-olds show weak oral-to-visual perception
4 months – intermodal matching between vision and hearing
4-6 months – match tactile and visual sensations

29. Figure 5.12 Mean times for infants to cross the visual cliff as a function of condition.

30. INTERMODAL PERCEPTION
Explaining Intermodal Perception
Intersensory redundancy hypothesis
Amodal detection of a stimulus aids in development and differentiation of individual senses
At birth – perception is amodal
Experiencing multimodal stimuli leads to intermodal perception

31. CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON INFANT PERCEPTION
Language – become sensitive to sounds important to specific language
English vs. Chinese and “r” and “l”
Music – familiar with own culture’s music
Western major/minor vs. Javanese scale
Growth of perceptual skills includes adding new skills and losing unnecessary ones
Culture determines which sensory inputs are distinctive and how to interpret those inputs

32. BASIC LEARNING PROCESSES IN INFANCY
Change in behavior that
Produces a new way to think about, perceive, or react to the environment
Is the result of experience
Is relatively permanent

33. BASIC LEARNING PROCESSES IN INFANCY
Habituation – process by which we stop responding to a repeated stimulus
Dishabituation – attending to a new stimulus
Developmental Trends
Possible before birth
4 months – may take long exposure
5-12 months – need a few seconds
10-14 months – habituate to objects and relationships between objects

34. Figure 5.13 Support habituation and test events: Containment test events

35. Figure 5.13 Support habituation and test events: Containment test events (continued)

36. BASIC LEARNING PROCESSES IN INFANCY
Individual Differences in Habituation
Some habituate slowly and forget rapidly
Others habituate rapidly and forget slowly
Rapid habituation between 6-8 months
Better language skills in 2nd year
Higher IQ later in childhood

37. BASIC LEARNING PROCESSES IN INFANCY
Classical Conditioning
Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) elicits an unconditioned response (UCR)
Neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) paired with (UCS)
Eventually CS elicits a conditioned response (CR)
Possible for newborns, but must have survival value

38. BASIC LEARNING PROCESSES IN INFANCY
Operant Conditioning
Learner emits a response (operates on environment)
Associates this action with the consequences it produces
Repeat favorable, limit unfavorable
Newborns learn very slowly, rate increases with age
At 2 months, memory is context-dependent

39. Figure 5.14 Basic principles of operant conditioning.

40. Figure 5.15 When ribbons are attached to their ankles, 2- to 3-month-old infants soon learn to make a mobile move by kicking their legs. But do they remember how to make the mobile move when tested days or weeks after the original learning? These are the questions that Rovee-Collier has explored in her fascinating research on infant memory.

41. BASIC LEARNING PROCESSES IN INFANCY
Observational Learning –
Attend to a model and form a symbolic representation of model’s behavior
Newborn imitation – possible at 7 days old, if part of behavioral repertoire
Imitation of novel responses – reliable between 8-12 months old
Immediate imitation at first, deferred imitation later

42. Figure 5.16 Sample photographs from videotaped recordings of 2- and 3-week old infants imitating tongue protrusion, mouth opening, and lip protrusion.