Transcript Chapter 5 - Infancy/Perception

Chapter 5 – Sensation &
Perception
• Sensation
= reception of stimuli
• Perception
= interpretation of those stimuli
I. Smell & Taste
Sensitive by birth
• Activity level
- internal
- external
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Facial expression
Orientation
Preference
Habituation
• Discriminate odors/tastes
- all 4 taste categories (prefer sweet)
- many odors
• Importance
- prefer stimuli related to breastfeeding
- enhances survival
II.
Touch
Reflex responses
• shows tactile perception from birth
Pain perception grows
• born with poor pain perception
• develops rapidly
• No experience of pain in the womb
• Softens birth experience
Heart rate
• increases in response to pain
Crying
• specific pain cry
• or just more & louder
Importance
• Attachment
- tactile contact with parent helps build
relationship
- orphans/preemies with little tactile
stimulation fail to develop properly
• Learning
- by handling object, learn about world
- brain structures & body develop
III. Hearing
• Good at birth; excellent by 6 months
- perfected through exposure to sounds
• Head orientation
• Activity level
4 Factors infants can discriminate
• Pitch
- better at higher pitches “motherese”
• Duration
- differentiate between sounds of similar
duration
- helps learn language
• Location
- improve with experience
- test via sound in darkened room
• Distance
- tell how far something is
- reach for noisy object in dark?
Importance
• Locate objects
• Perceive human speech
• Perceive danger
IV. Sight
• Fuzzy at birth
- improves quickly
Testing Vision
• Tracking
- following objects with eyes
• Optokinetic nystagmus
- eye movements when watching a moving
object
- shows acuity
• Scanning
- looking at different parts of object
• Habituation
- look longer at novel stimuli
4 Factors infants can discriminate
• Brightness
• Movement
• Pattern/rules
• Contrast/edges
Importance
• Bonding via eye contact
• Perceive face pattern
• Recognize parents
Color
• Rods & cones
- rods on periphery: night vision
- cones in center: color & day vision
• Poor at birth
- see black, white, some red
- good at 2-3 months
Depth
• Sensitive by 2 months
- visual cliff
4 visual cues to depth
• Kinetic - movement
- by 5 months
• Binocular
- difference in images in left & right eyes
- by 7 months
• Perspective
- lines moving together indicate distance
• Texture
- less detail & space between objects
indicates depth
“Texture gradient”
- by 7 months
Integration of senses
• Vision & touch
- if touched hidden object, recognize it visually
- by < 6 months
• Vision & hearing
- look at location of noisy object in dark room
- ~ 3 weeks
Ways of Learning
I. Habituation
• React to new a stimulus
• Reaction dulls
-> Learn the stimulus = habituation
& discriminate from others
• Importance
- attention to significant threats
II. Classical Conditioning - Pavlov
• Unconditioned stimulus & response
- US = stimulus that naturally evokes a
reaction
- UR = the natural reaction
• Conditioned stimulus & response
- something always occurs just prior to the
US (temporal proximity — cue)
- learn the association between the cue and
the US
- same reaction to the cue (the CS)
• Superstitious behavior
- perceiving a temporal link that is
coincidental
- fears, prejudice, phobias
• Extinction
- to eliminate the CR
- present CS many times with no US
- people eventually quit responding
- but: people resist extinction
- violates rules/patterns
• Importance
- survival behaviors can be classically
conditioned
- preparedness
III. Operant Conditioning - Skinner
• Rewards & punishments ->behavior
• Use operant conditioning to measure
infants’ perceptions & what infants can
learn
IV. Observational Learning - Bandura
• Learn by imitating models
• Integration of 2+ senses
- use of games
• Skills, socialization, & language
• Do newborns imitate?
- newborns sticking out tongue
- or not until ~ 8 weeks