CHAPTER 5 CONITIVE DEVELOPMENT INFANT MEMORY

DURING THE FIRST THREE YEARS

 How do we determine what babies know?
 Infants cannot talk, and they have limited
Six Approaches to Studying Cognitive motor control; thus, researchers must be
Development creative if they are to determine what babies
know and understand. Fortunately,
 Behaviorist approach – concerned with the
conditioning paradigms in research allow
basic mechanics of learning. investigators to ask questions of babies in ways
 Psychometric – seeks to measure intelligence they can answer.
quantitatively.
 Piagetian – describes qualitative
 Information processing – analyzes processes
involved in perceiving and handling
information.
 Cognitive neuroscience – links brain
processes with cognitive ones.
 Social-contextual – focuses on environmental
influences, particularly parents and other
caregivers.
 Research has determined that the length of time
a conditioned response lasts increases with age.
BEHAVIORIST APPROACH
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING OPERANT  2 months of age – can remember a conditioned
CONDITIONING response for 2 days; 18 months can remember
it for 13 weeks.
 Anna and her father’s camera
o Camera – flash – blink  1-, 6- and 9-month old infants – cannot
o Camera □ blink recognize a picture in a different room but
 Classical conditioning – learning based on 12- and
associating a stimulus that does not ordinarily  18-month old CAN.
elicit a response with another stimulus that PSYCHOMETRIC APPROACH
does elicit the response.
 Operant conditioning – learning based on  Intelligent behavior – behavior that is goal
association of behavior with its consequences. oriented and adaptive to circumstances and
 Baby babbles = parents smile □ increase conditions of life.
babbling  Psychometric tests measure factors
 Baby throws food = parents frown □ not throw presumed to make up intelligence.
food Intelligence quotient (IQ) tests –
psychometric tests that seek to measure
intelligence by comparing a test-taker’s
performance with standardized norms.
 Binet Simon Scale – first IQ test. school, more likely to graduate from high
school, more likely to be employed, less likely
Testing Infants and Toddlers to be imprisoned, and report higher lifetime
 If a child is unable to perform a task that the earnings
―average babyǁ can do by a particular age,  Thus, from an economic standpoint, despite
that child may be delayed in that area. By their high cost, early intervention programs are
contrast, a baby can also be ahead of the curve worth the benefits accrued.
by performing better than her same-age peers.  The most effective early interventions are
those that:
 Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler 1. Start early and continue throughout the
Development – standardized test of infants’ preschool years;
and toddler’s mental and motor development. It 2. Are highly time-intensive;
was designed to assess children from 1 month 3. Center-based
to 3 ½ years. Scores on the Bayley-III indicate 4. Take a comprehensive approach including
a child’s competencies in each of five health,family counseling, and social
developmental areas: cognitive, language, services.
motor, social-emotional, and adaptive 5. Are tailored to individual differences and
behavior. needs.

PIAGETIAN APPROACH

Assessing the Impact of the Early Home SENSORIMOTOR STAGE

Environment  Sensorimotor stage - Piaget’s first stage in
 Home Observation for Measurement of the cognitive development, in which infants learn
Environment (HOME) – instrument to through senses and motor activity.
measure the influence of the home environment  Schemes
on children’s cognitive growth. -Piaget’s term for organized patterns of thought
 Home Observation for Measurement of the and behavior used in particular situations.
Environment (HOME) – instrument to
measure the influence of the home environment Primary circular reaction
on children’s cognitive growth.
Baby’s Action

Secondary Circular Reactions

Early Intervention
Intentionally repeat actions to trigger a response
 Early intervention – Systematic process of
Tertiary Circular Reactions
providing services to help families meet young
children’s developmental needs. Will deliberately change/alter an action to discover
 There are lasting effects of early intervention consequences.
programs.
 Children who participate in early intervention
programs are less likely to require special
education services in grade school and high
 The sixth substage (about 18 months to 2
years) is a transition to the preoperational
stage of early childhood.
 Representational ability – Piaget’s term
for capacity to store mental images or
symbols of objects and events.
 They can pretend, and their representational
ability affects the sophistication of their
pretending. They can think about actions
before taking them. They no longer have to go
through laborious trial and error to solve
problems—they can try solutions in their mind.
Symbolic Development, Pictorial Competence
 During these six substages, infants develop the and Understanding of Scale
abilities to think and remember. They also  Symbols – intentional representations of
develop knowledge about aspects of the
physical world, such as objects and spatial reality.
relationships.  Pictorial competence – ability to understand

KEY DEVELOPMENTS OF THE the nature of pictures.

SENSORIMOTOR STAGE  Until 15 months – infants use their hands to

(Piagetian Approach) explore pictures as if they were objects—

rubbing, patting, or attempting to lift a depicted
 IMITATION
 Invisible imitation – imitation that involves object off the page.
parts of the body that babies cannot see – at 9  19 months - children are able to point at a
months. picture of an object while saying its name.
 Visible imitation – imitation that uses body
parts such as hands or feet that babies can see.  2 years – children understand that a picture is
 Deferred imitation - Piaget’s term for both an object and a symbol.
reproduction of an observed behavior after the  12- to 18-month old – able to imitate an
passage of time by calling up a stored symbol
adult’s actions (helping a puppet ring a bell)
of it.
when they saw an adult performing the action
 6-month old – can imitate how an adult in front of them than when they saw a video of
interacted with a doll after 10-minute delay.
the same thing.
 9 months – can reproduce 2 steps after a delay
of 1 month (e.g. dropping a toy car down a  2½-year-olds – able to locate an object hidden
vertical chute). in an adjoining room after watching a video of
 14 months – toddlers show preferences whom an adult hiding it, but 2-year-olds could not.
they imitate for.
 15 months – imitates a peer.  Yet the younger children were able to find the
 4 years of age – imitates those who are the object if they watched through a window as it
same gender as they are. was hidden.
OBJECT CONCEPT  Scale error – a momentary misperception of

 Object permanence – Piaget’s term for the relative sizes of objects.

understanding that a person or object still exists  Researchers suggested that these actions
when out of sight. might in part be based on a lack of impulse
 control—the children wanted to play with the Information Processing Approach: Perceptions
objects so badly that they ignored perceptual and Representations

information about size.  Information processing researchers measure

 Dual representation hypothesis –proposal mental processes through habituation and other
signs of visual and perceptual abilities.
that children under age 3 have difficulty  Contrary to Piaget’s ideas, such research
grasping spatial relationships because of the suggests that representational ability is present
need to keep more than one mental virtually from birth.
 Indicators of the efficiency of infant’s
representation in mind at the same time.
information processing, such as speed of
habituation, show promise as predictors of
Evaluating Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage
intelligence.
 In terms of describing what children do under
Tools of Infant Research
certain circumstances, and the basic
progression of skills, Piaget was correct.  Visual preference – tendency of infants to
However, infants and toddlers are more spend more time looking at one sight than
cognitively competent than Piaget imagined. another.
This does not mean that infants come into the  < 2 days old – prefers curved lines than
world with minds fully formed. straight; complex patterns than simple patterns,
 As Piaget observed, immature forms of 3D than 2D objects, pictures of faces than
cognition precede more mature forms. things, and moving objects than stationary
However, Piaget may have been mistaken in objects.
his emphasis on motor experience as the  Visual recognition memory – Ability to
primary engine of cognitive growth. Infants’ distinguish a familiar visual stimulus from an
perceptions are far ahead of their motor unfamiliar one when shown both at the same
abilities. time.

Perceptual Process
INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACH
 Cross-modal transfer - Ability to use
 HABITUATION
information gained by one sense to guide
-type of learning in which familiarity with a another.
stimulus reduces, slows or stops a response.  Joint attention - A shared attentional focus,
Familiarity breeds loss of interest. typically initiated with eye gaze or pointing.

 DISHABITUATION – increase in
responsiveness after presentation of a new
 The capacity for joint attention—which is of
stimulus.
fundamental importance to social interaction,
language acquisition, and the understanding of
others’ intentions and mental states— develops
between 10 and 12 months, when babies follow
 an adults’ gaze by looking or pointing in the
same direction.

Information Processing and Piagetian Abilities

 Categorization - Dividing the worldinto

meaningful categories is vital to thinking about
objects or concepts and their relationships. It is
the foundation of language, reasoning, problem
solving, and memory; without it, the world
would seem chaotic and meaningless.
 Perceptual features – shape, color, and
pattern.
 Conceptual – based on real-world knowledge
such as function.
 Causality - the principle that one event
(squeezing) causes another (quacking).

Number
 Piaget believed that at about 4 to 6 months, as
infants become able to grasp objects, they  In one classic study, infants watched as Mickey
begin to recognize they can act on their Mouse dolls were placed behind a screen, and a
environment. However, he believed they did doll was either added or taken away. The
not yet know that causes must come before screen then was lifted to reveal either the
effects and that forces outside of themselves number of dolls that should have been there or
can make things happen. He maintained that a different number of dolls.
this understanding develops slowly during  Babies looked longer at surprising―wrongǁ
infants’ 1st year. answers than at expected―rightǁ ones,
suggesting that they had mentally computed the
right answers.
Object Permanence
 5 objects, +5 more objects:
 When Piaget investigated object permanence, □Infants looked longer when the screen
he used infants’ motor responses to gauge dropped to show 5 than 10.
whether or not infants understood that a hidden  Moreover, in preschool, the ability to
object still existed. Their failure to reach for estimate approximate numbers is related to
the hidden object was interpreted to mean they later mathematical achievement, suggesting
did not. continuity in this process.
 Violation-of-expectations – research method
in which dishabituation to a stimulus that
conflicts with experience is taken as evidence
that an infant recognizes the new stimulus as
surprising.
Evaluating Information Processing Research  Once children know words, they can use them
to represent objects and actions. They can
 Some theorists argue we must be wary of
reflect on people, places, and things; and they
overestimating infants’ cognitive abilities from
can communicate their needs, feelings, and
data that may have simpler explanations.
ideas in order to exert more control over their
 They argue that an infant’s visual interest in an
lives.
impossible condition may reveal a perceptual
awareness that something unusual has
happened rather than a conceptual
understanding of the way things work. For
instance, if an infant looks longer at one scene
than another, it may just be because the two
scenes look different from each other rather
than because of any conceptual processes.

Cognitive Neuroscience Approach

 Neurological developments help explain the

emergence of Piagetian skills and memory
abilities.
 Implicit memory – unconscious recall;
generally of habits and skills; called
procedural memory.
 Explicit memory – intentional and conscious
memory; generally of facts, names and events.
 Working memory – short term storage of
information being actively processed; emerges
between 6 and 12 months of age.

Social Contextual Approach

 Social interactions with adults contribute to

cognitive competence through shared activities
that help children learn skills, knowledge, and
values important in their culture.
 Guided participation – adult’sparticipation in a
child’s activity that helps to structure it and
bring the child’s understanding of it closer to
the adults.

Language Development

 Language – a communication system based on

words and grammar.
Sequence of Early Language Development interested in listening to speakers in the
languages he or she was previously exposed to.
 Before babies can use words, they make their
needs and feelings known through sounds that Gestures
progress from crying to cooing and babbling,
 Before babies speak, they point. Pointing is
then to accidental imitation, and then deliberate
important to language acquisition and serves
imitation.
several functions.
 Prelinguistic speech – forerunner of linguistic
 Conventional social gestures – waving bye-
speech; utterance of sounds that area not
bye, nodding head to mean ―yesǁ and
[Link] crying, cooing, babbling, and
shaking her head to signify―noǁ.
imitating language sounds.
 Representational social gestures – hold an
empty cup to mouth to show wanting to drink
or holding up arms to show wanting to be
Early Vocalization
picked up.
 Crying – a newborn’s first means of  Symbolic gestures – blowing to mean ―hotǁ
communication. Adults find crying aversive for or sniffing to mean―flowerǁ often emerge
a reason – it motivates them to find the source around the same time that babies say their first
of the problem and fix it. Thus, crying has words, and they
great adaptive value.
 Cooing – typically a vowel sound,like ahhh,
but can also sound like gurgling noises or First Words
squealing. It signifies that baby is starting to
 Linguistic speech – verbal expression
work on language development.
designed to convey meaning.
 Babbling – repeating consonant-vowel strings,
 Holophrase – single word that conveys a
such as―ma- ma-ma-maǁ – occurs between
complete thought.
ages 6 and 10 months and is often mistaken for
 Receptive vocabulary – what infants
a baby’s first word. It is initially nonsensical
understand.
and becomes more word-like over time.
 Expressive vocabulary – spoken vocabulary.
 Generally, infants have a far greater receptive
vocabulary than an expressive—or spoken—
Perceiving Language Sounds and Structure
vocabulary
 Imitation of language sounds requires the  Nouns seem to be the easiest type of word to
ability to perceive subtle differences between learn.
sounds. Infants’ brains seem to be preset to
discriminate basic linguistic patterns, and
categorize them as similar or different. First Sentences

 Telegraphic speech - Early form of sentence

 Phonemes – smallest units of sound in speech.
use consisting of only a few essential words.
 Syntax – Rules for forming sentences in a
 If a mother regularly speaks two languages
particular language.
during pregnancy, her newborn baby will
 Syntax is why a sentence like―man bites dogǁ
recognize both languages and be more
differs from ―dog bites man,ǁ and it allows us
 to understand and produce an infinite number which may be activated or constrained by
of utterances. experience.

Characteristics of Early Speech

 Underextend word meanings – they use Influences on Early Language Development

words in too narrow of a category.
 Influences on language development include
 Overextend word meanings – using words in
neural maturation and social interaction.
too broad of a category.
 Overregularize rules – occurs when children
 In many ways, the brains of young children,
inappropriately apply a syntactical rule.
even before they begin to speak, process
(“I drawed that.”
language similarly to adult brains. Frontal brain
regions are involved in the processing of
speech in infants as they are in adults, although
Variations in Language Development
in infants, this process is slower. Last, the
 Code mixing – use of elements of two processing of linguistic information is localized
languages, sometimes in the same utterance, by in the left hemisphere in infants as it is in
young children in households where both almost all adults.
languages are spoken.
 Code switching – changing one’s speech to
match the situation, as in people who are  Family characteristics, such as socioeconomic
bilingual. status, adult language use, and maternal
responsiveness, affect a child’s vocabulary
The Nature-Nurture Debate
development.
 Is linguistic ability learned or inborn? In the
1950s, a debate raged between two schools of
thought: one led by B. F. Skinner, the Child-Directed Speech
foremost proponent of learning theory, the
 CDS – sometimes called parentese, motherese
other by the linguist Noam Chomsky.
or baby talk; form of speech used in talking to
 Skinner: language learning, like other
babies or toddlers, includes slow, simplified
learning, is based on experience and learned
speech, a high- pitched tone, exaggerated
associations.
vowel sounds, short words and sentences, and
 Nativism – view by Chomsky; theory that
much repetition.
human
 Child-directed speech (CDS) seems to have
 Language acquisition device – in Chomsky’s
cognitive, emotional and social benefits, and
terminology, an inborn mechanism that enables
infants show a preference for it. However,
children to infer linguistic rules from the
some researchers dispute its value.
language they hear.
 Most developmental scientists today maintain
that language acquisition, like most other
aspects of development, depends on an
intertwining of nature and nurture. Children
have an inborn capacity to acquire language,
Preparing for Literacy: The Benefits of
Reading Aloud

Three adult reading styles:

 Describer – describes what is going on in the

pictures and invited the child to do so.
 Comprehender – encourages the child to look
more deeply at the meaning of a story and to
make inferences and predictions.
 Performance-oriented reader – reads the
story straight through, introducing the main
themes beforehand and asking questions
afterward.