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Chapter 6 Early Cognitive Foundations:
Sensation, Perception, and Learning
Early Controversies about Sensory and Perceptual Development
Nature vs. nurture Nativist philosophers argue that many basic perceptual
abilities are innate. Empiricist philosophers believed infants are born tabula
rasa (blank slate) and must learn to interpret sensations. Enrichment vs. differentiation
Enrichment theory claims that sensory stimulation is often fragmented or confusing.
Differentiation theory argues that sensory stimulation provides all we need to interpret our experiences.
"Making Sense" of the Infant's Sensory and Perceptual Experiences
The preference method Two stimuli are presented simultaneously to see whether
infants will attend more to one of them than the other. Robert Fantz's looking chamber
The habituation method Most popular strategy for measuring infant sensory and
perceptual capabilities Infants habituate and dishabituate to many different kinds
of stimulation Evoked potentials: Brain wave patterns are studied. High-amplitude sucking: Infants are provided with a special
pacifier containing electrical circuitry that enables them to exert some control over the sensory environment.
Infant Sensory Capabilities
Vision Least developed sense in the newborn Visual acuity of newborn: 20/600
Hearing Reactions to voices: Especially attentive to high-pitched
feminine voices Reactions to language: Infants can discriminate phonemes
very early in life. Consequences of hearing loss: Could hamper language
development Taste and smell
Infants are born with preference for sweet tastes. Infants are born capable of detecting a variety of odors.
Touch, temperature, and pain: Proprioceptor senses are functioning at birth.
Infant Sensory Capabilities (cont.)
Perception of Patterns and Forms in Infancy
Early pattern perception (0 to 2 months) Prefer to look at whatever they can see well
Later form perception (2 months to 1 year) Can use object movement to perceive form
Explaining form perception Growth of form perception results from a continuous
interplay among baby's inborn equipment, biological maturation, and visual experiences.
Perception of Three-Dimensional Space in Infancy
Size constancy Recognizing that an object remains the same size even
when its image on the retina becomes larger as the object moves closer, or smaller as the object moves farther away
Binocular vision enhances this capability. Binocular vision emerges around 3 to 5 months of age.
Use of pictorial cues 7-month-olds seem able to use pictorial cues, while 5-
month-olds cannot.
Perception of Three-Dimensional Space in Infancy (cont.)
Development of depth perception Visual cliff experiment
Infants detect a difference between the deep and shallow sides.
Motor development and depth perception Self-produced movement helps develop depth perception.
Visual Cliff
Visual cliff:
Perception of Three-Dimensional Space in Infancy (cont.)
Intermodal Perception
The senses are integrated at birth or shortly thereafter. Development of intermodal perception improves dramatically
over the first year of life. Explaining intermodal perception is difficult, but seems
consistent with the differentiation theory.
Infant Perception in Perspective—and a Look Ahead
Perceptual learning in childhood: Gibson’s differentiation theory Perceptual learning occurs when we actively explore and
detect distinctive features. Cultural influences on perception
Subtle, but important effects Newborns are equipped to perceive "musicality" and to
discriminate good music from bad music. Humans learn not to hear certain phonemes if they are
not distinctive to the language spoken.
Infant Perception in Perspective—and a Look Ahead (cont.)
Figure 6.14 Examples of figures used to test children’s ability to detect the distinctive features of letterlikeforms. Stimulus 1 is the standard. The child’s task is to examine each of the comparison stimuli(stimuli 2–7) and pick out those that are the same as the standard. Adapted fromGibson et al.,1962.
Basic Learning Processes
Individual now thinks, perceives, or reacts to the environment in a new way
Result of a person's experiences Change is relatively permanent.
Habituation: Early Evidence of Information-Processing and Memory
Process by which we stop attending or responding to a stimulus repeated over and over
Improves dramatically throughout the first year of life Individual differences
Infants who habituate rapidly during the first six to eight months of life are quicker to understand and use language during the second year of life.
Classical Conditioning
A neutral stimulus that initially has no effect on the child eventually elicits a response of some sort, because it is associated with a second stimulus that always elicits the response.
Classical conditioning of emotions Little Albert
UCS — loud banging noise UCR — fearful behavior CS — rat CR— fearful behavior
Even newborns can be classically conditioned.
Classical Conditioning (cont.)
Figure 6.15 The three phases of classical conditioning. In the preconditioning phase, theunconditioned stimulus (UCS)always elicits an unconditioned response (UCR), whereas theconditioned stimulus (CS) neverdoes. During the conditioningphase, the CS and UCS arepaired repeatedly and eventuallyassociated. At this point, thelearner passes into thepostconditioning phase, in whichthe CS alone elicits the originalresponse (now called aconditioned response, or CR)
Operant (or Instrumental) Conditioning
Four possible consequences of operant responses Positive reinforcement: Something pleasant is added to
increase response. Negative reinforcement: Something unpleasant is removed
to increase response. Positive punishment: Something unpleasant is added to
decrease response. Negative punishment: Something pleasant is removed to
decrease response. Operant conditioning in infancy is at best limited in early
infancy. Infants can remember what they have learned. The social significance of early operant learning is evident in
infants and their caregivers.
Operant (or Instrumental) Conditioning (cont.)
Figure 6.16 Basic principles of operant conditioning
Operant (or Instrumental) Conditioning (cont.)
Observational Learning
Newborn imitation can be observed for facial expressions. Advances in imitation and observational learning become
obvious around 8 to 12 months of age. Grade school children are capable of verbally describing
model's behavior, and are better at imitating the model.