The First Two Years: Cognitive Development

1. The First Two Years: Cognitive Development cognition = “thinking” • “thinking” in a very broad sense includes… • language • learning • memory • intelligence

2. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Senori-motor Stage (0 – 24 months) Infants learn through senses and motor actions Sensorimotor period is subdivided into 6 stages Primary Circular Reactions • Stage 1 – Reflexes • Stage 2 – First Acquired Adaptations Secondary Circular Reactions • Stage 3 – An awareness of Things • Stage 4 – New Adaptation and Anticipation Tertiary Circular Reactions • Stage 5 – New means through active experimentation • Stage 6 – New means through mental combinations

3. Piaget and Research Methods • Piaget’s sensorimotor intelligence actually occurs earlier for most infants than Piaget predicted. • Piaget used observation to make his conclusions • More extensive experimental methods have determined that he was not always correct. This technology was not available to Piaget. • Habituation, the process of getting used to (i.e., bored with) a stimulus after repeated exposure. An infant can show this by looking away. • If a new object appears and the infant reacts (change in heart rate, sucking), it is assumed they recognize the object as something different. • fMRI also indicate that information is being noticed and processed by infants at an earlier age than believed. • Thinking develops before motor skills can execute thought.

4. Information Processing Theory • a perspective that compares human thinking processes to computer analysis of data • including sensory input • connections • stored memories • output

5. Information Processing Theory perception= the mental processing of information that arrives at the brain from the sensory organs = the 1st step of information processing Two people can have very different perceptions of the same situation (actually observe it differently) Eleanor and James Gibbs – perception is far from automatic, it is a cognitive accomplishment that requires selectivity.

6. Information Processing Theory • The environment offers or affords many opportunities for perception and for interaction with what is perceived. • Affordances = these opportunities for action provided by the environment • We do not perceive things we perceive how we can interact with them • Depends on four factors: • sensory awareness • immediate needs and motivation • current developmental level • past experiences

7. Information Processing Theory • Research on Early Affordance • Information processing improves over the first year infants become quicker to recognize affordances • Experiences affect which affordances are perceived

8. Information Processing Theory • Sudden Drops visual cliff = an apparatus to measure depth perception (further study has found that not crossing the visual cliff is not completely about depth perception) • Mothers could encourage 6 month olds to wiggle across the visual cliff. • Once kids can crawl they realize that crawling over the visual cliff affords falling. • the cliff “affords” danger for older infants who have had experience with falling – they would not cross the visual cliff.

9. Information Processing Theory • Movement and People • All infants have: • dynamic perception • primed to focus on movement and change • a people preference • a universal principle of infant perception, consisting of an innate attraction to other humans, which is evident in visual, auditory, tactile, and other preferences

10. Information Processing Theory • Memory • Developmentalists now agree that even very young infants can remember under the following circumstances: • experimental conditions are similar to “real life” • motivation is high • special measures are taken to aid memory retrieval

11. Information Processing Theory • Reminders and Repetition • reminder sessions • a perceptual experience that is intended to help a person recollect an idea, a thing, or an experience, without testing whether the person remembers it at the moment

12. Information Processing Theory • after about 6 months infants can retain information for longer periods of time… with less training or reminding • Around 1 many kinds of memory is apparent (ex. deferred imitation) • by the middle of the 2nd year toddlers can remember and reenact more complex sequences

13. Information Processing Theory • Memory is not one “thing” • brain-imaging techniques reveal many distinct brain regions devoted to particular aspects of memory • implicit memory is memory for routines and memories that remain hidden until particular stimulus bring them to mind • explicit memory is memory that can be recalled on demand

14. Language: What Develops in the First Two Years? • Language = the most impressive human accomplishment • The Universal Sequence • Around the world children follow the same sequence of early language development

15. Language • Listening and Responding • infants begin learning language before birth • infants prefer speech over other sounds • child-directed speech • the high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to infants Newborns 2 month olds 3 – 6 month olds

16. Language • Babbling (6 – 10 mos.) • repeating certain syllables (e.g., da-da-da). • all babies babble, even deaf babies (although later and less frequently). • babbling is a way to communicate. Babies also use hand gestures

17. Language • First Words • usually around 1 year the average baby speaks, or signs a few words • they are often familiar nouns • by 13 months spoken language increases very gradually • 6 to 15 month-olds learn meaning rapidly and comprehend about 10 times as many words as they speak

18. Language • The Naming Explosion • a sudden increase in an infant’s vocabulary, especially in the number of nouns begins at about 18 months • Once vocabulary reaches about 50 expressed words it continues to build rapidly at a rate of 50 to 100 per month, 21 month-olds saying twice as many as 18 month-olds

19. Language • Cultural Differences • the ratio of nouns to verbs and adjectives show cultural influences. • one explanation is the language itself • another explanation is social context (toys and objects) • every language has some concepts encoded in adult speech that are very hard for infants to understand

20. Language • Beginning Sentences “Dada!” “Dada?” and “Dada.” • each is a holophrase, a single word that expresses a complete, meaningful thought. • intonations varying in tone and pitch is extensive in babbling and again in holophrases at about 18 months • Are communicating with others

21. Language • grammar--all the methods that languages use to communicate meaning. Word order, prefixes, intonation, verb forms,… are all aspects of grammar. • Obvious when 2 word communication begins • Grammar correlates with the size of the vocabulary. • Comprehension correlates with vocabulary and grammar.

22. Language • Theories of Language Learning • There are 3 theories of how infants learn language: • they are taught (view of B. F. Skinner) • they teach themselves (view of Noam Chomsky) • social impulses foster learning

23. Language • Theory One: Infants Need to Be Taught • Approximately 50 years ago the dominant learning theory in North America was behaviorism • B. F. Skinner (1957) noticed that spontaneous babbling is usually reinforced… a grinning mother appears, repeating, praising, giving attention to the infant • Parents are expert teachers, other caregivers help • Frequent repetitions is instructive when linked to daily life • Well-taught infants become well-spoken children

24. Language • Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves • a contrary theory is that language learning is innate--adults need not teach it • Norm Chomsky (1968,1980) felt that language is too complex to be mastered merely through step-by-step conditioning

25. Language • Theory Two: Infants Teach Themselves • universal grammar--all young children master basic grammar at about the same age • Universal grammar = evidence that humans are born with a mental structure that prepares them to seek some elements of human languages • Language acquisition device (LAD) • a term used for a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language, including the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary and intonation from the speech they hear every day.

26. Language • Theory Three: Social Impulses Foster Infant Language • a third theory called social-pragmatic perceives the crucial starting point to be neither vocabulary reinforcement (behaviorism) nor innate connection (epigenetic), but rather the social reason for language; communication • Infants communicate in every way they can because humans are social beings and depend on one another for survival and joy • Language is acquired as a by-product of social interactions with adults.

27. Language • A Hybrid Theory • the integration of all three perspectives… notably in a monograph based on 12 experiments designed by 8 researchers • their model an emergentist coalition… combing valid aspects of several theories about the emergence of language during infancy • Children learn language to do numerous tasks. • Some aspects of language are best learned one way and some another.