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)

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

Typical Age Range

Description of Stage

Developmental Phenomena

Birth to nearly 2 years SensorimotorExperiencing 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

PreoperationalRepresenting things with words and images but lacking logical reasoning

•Pretend play•Egocentrism•Language development

Concrete operationalThinking logically about concrete events; grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations

•Conservation •Mathematical transformations

Formal operationalAbstract reasoning

•Abstract logic•Potential for moral reasoning

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Cognitive Development:Sensorimotor Stage Object Permanence

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

No object permanence A-not-B Error

Cognitive Development:Sensorimotor Stage

Circular Reactions PrimaryPrimary – baby accidentally does

something and repeats simply because it feels good Saliva bubbles, waving arms

SecondarySecondary – similar to primary, but involve objects in the environment Example

TertiaryTertiary – infant devises new ways to act on objects to produce interesting results.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Baby Mathematics Shown a numerically impossible outcome,

infants stare longer (Wynn, 1992)

1. Objects placedin case.

2. Screen comesup.

3. Object is removed.

4. Impossible outcome:Screen drops, revealing two objects.

4. Possible outcome:Screen drops, revealingone object.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Scale Error in the Judy DeLoache Study Found 18 – 30 month olds commonly

make Scale Errors

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Scale Error Typical scale error ages

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

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

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?

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.

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?

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.

Social Development

Stranger 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

“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)?

Social Development

Groups of infants left by their mothers in a unfamiliar room (Kagan, 1976).0

20

40

60

80

100

3.5 5.5 7.5 9.5 11.5 13.5 20 29

Percentage of infantswho criedwhen theirmothers left

Age in months

Day care

Home

Origins of Attachment

Critical Period 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

Origins of Attachment

Harlow’s Surrogate Mother Experiments Monkeys preferred

contact with the comfortable cloth mother, even while feeding from the nourishing wire mother

Social Development

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

Social Development

Basic Trust (Erik Erikson) 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

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

Social Development: Child-Rearing Practices