PSYC200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Discrimination Learning, Sense Of Balance, The Human Face
Sensation, Perception, Attention and Memory
Overview
Sensation
-
Perception
-
Attention
-
Memory
-
In
Infancy
○
Childhood
○
Adolescence
○
Older age
○
Sensation - detection and transmission
Perception - interpretation
Attention - ability to focus
The senses
How many senses are there?
Between 9-21
Vision
§
Hearing
§
Taste
§
Smell
§
Touch
§
○
-
Proprioception - body position
-
Equilibrioception - balance
-
Interoception - operation of internal organs
-
Methods of studying infant perception
Preferential looking - what they prefer to look at
Duration of looking at one of a pair
○
-
Habituation - draw bridge study
Discrimination learning
○
'learning to be bored'
○
-
Operant conditioning
Response to one stimulus in a pair following reinforcement (sucking, heart rate)
○
-
Eye tracking - more focus on face, (nose, eyes and mouth)
-
Evoked potentials
Electrical conductivity of the brain
○
Recording signles fro celebral cotex in infant brain, different area activates when
looking at faces compared to bodies
○
-
Infant Vision
Basic capacities present at birth
Can detect changes in brightness
○
Track a slow-moving object
○
Nothing to look at in urtero so no practise
○
-
Lack visual acuity
Ability to perceive detail
○
Optimal at about 20-25cms
○
-
Initial limitations in visual accommodation
Ability to focus on objects at different distances
§
Takes 6 months to 1 year before can see as well as an adult
○
-
Colour vision present at birth
Mature at 2 to 3 months
○
-
Visual perception
Visual preferences
Patterns that have light-dark transitions; contour & contrast. Stripy shirt
○
Displays that contain movement
○
Moderately complex patterns
○
The human face - annate faces and rapidly require knowledge about faces - to
promote relationship with care giver for survival
○
-
Object perception
Newborns appear to have object constancy (i.e., perception that the object stays the same
depite changes in sensations)
Size constancy
○
Shape constancy - idea shape stays the same when it moves
○
-
Depth perception
The visual cliff: Gibson and Walk (1960)
7 months crawler will not cross the cliff
○
Can perceive the cliff by 2 months - not scared and don’t aviod as mum is in charge
○
Fear of drop-off requires crawling
○
-
Infants have intuitive theories - organised systems of knowledge - that allow them to make
sense of the world
-
Infant Hearing
Can hear well before birth
-
Can recognise their mothers voice, even in utero
-
Newborns discriminate sounds that differ in loudness, duration, direction and pitch
-
Preference for complex sounds
-
Infants respons to human speech and prefer speech over non-speech sounds
-
Early differentiation between tones (happy and sad)
-
Infant Taste and Smell
Taste
Newborns can distinguish between sweet, bitter and sour tastes
Show a clear preference for sweet
§
○
-
Smell (olfaction)
Works well at birth
○
Will turn head away from unpleasent smells
○
All babies prefer the smell of human milk over formula, even if previously consumed
formula
○
At 1 to 2 weeks, breast-fed babies can recognise the smell of their mother
○
-
Infant Touch
Senses of touch and motion develop before birth
Sensitivity to tactile stimulation develops in a cephalocaudal (head to tail) direction -
most sensitive to cheek then leg
○
Touch soothes a fussy baby - chest to chest
○
Massage helps premature infants to gain weight, be more relaxed, and develop
more regulate sleep patterns
○
-
Sensitivity to warm and cold at birth
-
Integrating Sensory Information
At birth, sensory functions are integrated
-
Intermodal perception: the way different sensations are combined to form perception of
unitary events or objects
Helps babies perceive and respond appropriately to the objects and people they
encounter
○
Improves throughout childhood and adolescenes
○
-
Sensitive periods
A time period when certain sensory experiences are vital in determining the
organisation of the brain
○
-
Development of Attention
Infants are 'captured by' something
They have an orienting system - scared of threatening objects such as spiders and
snakes
○
-
Children are 'directed toward' something
They have a focusing system that seeks out and maintain attention to events
○
-
From infancy:
Increase in attention span
○
Better able to concentrate on a task
○
Attention becomes more selective
○
More systematic perceptual searches in orfer to achieve goals and solve problems
○
-
The Adolescent
Attention
Ability to sustain attention improves considerably (myelination - axon fatty part)
-
More efficient at ignoring distractions
-
Divided attention improves - able to hear 2 different conversation or listen to music and
study
-
Problems with attention
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Prevalence worldwide = 5% of children - 3 times more common in boys than girls
○
First ADHD cases describe in 1800s
○
Strong genetic component - 76% heritability
○
Noradrenaline and dopamine are key neurotransmitters in brain regions associated
with ADHD
○
Environment risk factors: prematurity, intra-utero exposure to tobacco and low
birth weight
○
Characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and/or impulsicity -
symptoms must be present prior to 12 years of age
○
Inattention:
Individual has difficulty initiating, remaining engaged in and completing a task
Distractibility, forgetfulness, frequent difficulty keeping track of objects,
difficulty listening when spoken to or planning and executing actions
□
Careless mistakes to daily activities□
§
○
Hyperactivity:
Excessive physical activity
§
Constant feelings of restlessness
§
Non-goal-directed motor activity - walking around for the sake of walk no
purpose or goal
§
Frequency fidgeting or squirming in seat
§
Inability to play quiet
§
Talking too much, running around or climbing when it is inappropriate
§
○
Impulsivity
Difficulty in delaying an action or response even when it is known that this
action will have negative consequences
§
Associated with the need for immediate over delayed gratification, even when
the postponement would lead to better results
Difficulty waiting one's turn to speak - blurting out answers before the
question is finished
□
§
○
Differences in presentation according to age - more difficult to detect in preschool
years since a lot of the ADHA behaviours are normal in this age group
○
ADHD symptoms, if left untreated, often persist into adulthood - 15% for full
syndrome and 40-60 for cases in partial remission
○
Persistence of symptoms associated with severity
○
-
The Adult
Sensory and perceptual capacities decline gradually in normal adults
Begins in early adulthood, becomes noticeable in 40s and are typical by age 65 +
○
Can compensate for the deficits
○
-
Losses take two forms
Sensory thresholds are higher1.
Perceptual abilities decline in some aging adults2.
-
Sensory/Perceptual problems
Visions
Pupils become smaller and do not respond as much when lighting conditions change
○
Lens becomes denser and less flexible
Cannot accommodate to bring objects at different distances into focus
§
Decreased ability to accommodate objects close to the eye
§
○
-
Attention
Selective attention declines
More easily distracted from task
○
Attend to irrelevant cues
○
-
Novel, complex tasks more difficult
Familiar and well-practiced skills remains
○
-
Hearing
Most older adults have at least mild hearing loss
-
Loss of high-pitched sounds
More common and earlier in men
○
-
Some difficulty with speech perception
May be cognitive or sensory
○
Background noise a problem
○
-
Novel and complex tasks problematic
-
Memory and Information Processing
Information-Processing Theories
Computer analogy - an ability to systematically convert input to output
-
Emphasizes basic mental processes: attention, preception, memory and decision-making
-
Memory Systems
Memory processes
Encoding: getting information into the system
○
Consolidation: processing and organising information
○
Storage: holding information in long-term memory
○
Retrieval: information is obtained from long-term memory
○
A constructive, not static process
○
-
The Infant
Can habituate at birth
-
Newborns can Imitate actions
-
Infants imitate a novel action after a delay - ability increases with age
Changes in encoding
○
Changes in retention
○
-
Task dependent - reduce demands remember earlier on. Complex harder to remember till
older age
-
The child
Improvements in basic capacities
Maturation of the hippocampus and other parts of the brain invovled in
consolidation of memory
○
Short-term memory capactiy improves, particularly between ages 6 to 13 years
○
-
Speed and efficiency of mental processing improves
Allows simultaneous mental operations
○
Basic mental processes become automatic; frees working memory
○
Greater knowledge of a domain increases the speed with which new, related
information can be processed
○
-
Memory strategies
Improvement in memory strategies (mnemonics)
Increased use of rehearsal at about 7 years1.
Master organisation (i.e., classifying items into meaningful groups) by 9 to 10 years2.
Elaboration (i.e., actively creating meaningful link between items) - last strategy to
develop
3.
-
Knowledge about memory
Improvements in knowledhe about memory
Metamemory: knowledge of memory and understanding how to monitor and
regulate memory processes
Present in young children
§
Improve with age
§
○
-
Autobiographical Memories
Childhood amnesia: few autobiographical memories from 1st years of life
Limited working memory capacity
○
Lack sufficient language skills
○
Lack a sense of self
○
Early verbatim memories are unstable and likely to be lost
○
-
Adolescent
New stratgies emerge (e.g., elaboration; approach to study)
-
Strategies are used deliberately and selectively
-
Basic capacities increase (e.g., processing speed)
-
Knowledge base increase
-
Metacognition improves
-
Adult
Domain specific knowledge base increase (expertise)
Think more effectively
Remember more new information
§
Solve problems effectively and efficiently
§
Automaticity
§
○
-
The older adult and cognitive abilities
Some change in inevitable
-
More diversity in late adulthood than at any other stage development
-
Mojor categories of cognitive functioning
Cognitive mechanics
Basic memory processes
○
Fluid
○
Content free
○
Decline in late adulthood
○
-
Cognitive pragmatics
Intellectual problems in which culture-based knowledge and skills are primary
○
Crystallised
○
Less prone to decline with age
○
-
The aging brain
Brain weight and brain mass gradually decrease during adulthood
Accelerates after 60 years
○
More so in some areas of the brain than others (steady decrease in fluid
intelligence)
○
Moderated by health status
○
Genetic factos (APOE gene)
○
Lufestyle choic e.g., physical activity
○
-
Less blood flow to brain
Degeneration of neurons
○
-
Neurotransmitters change
-
Cognitive Plasticity
Plasticity: the ability of other neurons to take over the functions of neurons that have
been damaged or lost
-
Ageing brains can respond positively to enrichment and training
Cognitive training
○
Environmental factors influence the course of cognitive functioning in adulthood
○
Interventions might allow for maintenance of functioning
○
-
Age related brain disorders
Organic brain syndromes: Patholgical states of the brain caused by physical damage of
brain tissue
-
Multi-infarct dementia
Accounts for 10-20% of organic brain syndrome in adults
○
Risk factors: hypertension; diabetes' mellitus; advanced age; male; smoke
○
Sudden onset
○
Importance of early diagnosis
○
-
Alzheimer's disease
Accounts for 50 to 60 % of organic brain syndrome patients over 65 years of age
○
Prevalence rises with age
1% in 60 - 65 years old
§
24-36% in thoes > 85 years
§
○
The course of the disease in usually between 7 to 10 years
○
Main risk factor is chronological age
○
-
Explainign memory decline
Changes in basic capacities
Decline in capactiy to use working memory to operate actively and simultaneously
on multiple pieces of information
○
More difficulty ignoring irrelevant information
○
Attention becomes more effortful (motivation)
○
-
Older adults learn new material more slowly, learn it less well, remember less
More problems with recall than recognition
○
-
Sensory abilityies decline
-
Uncorrected refracted error
Cataracst
Age related maculat degeneration
Glaocoma
Diabetic
Other
Week 5 Lecture
Tuesday, 27 March 2018
9:50 PM
Sensation, Perception, Attention and Memory
Overview
Sensation
-
Perception
-
Attention
-
Memory
-
In
Infancy
○
Childhood
○
Adolescence
○
Older age
○
Sensation - detection and transmission
Perception - interpretation
Attention - ability to focus
The senses
How many senses are there?
Between 9-21
Vision
§
Hearing
§
Taste
§
Smell
§
Touch
§
○
-
Proprioception - body position
-
Equilibrioception - balance
-
Interoception - operation of internal organs
-
Methods of studying infant perception
Preferential looking - what they prefer to look at
Duration of looking at one of a pair
○
-
Habituation - draw bridge study
Discrimination learning
○
'learning to be bored'
○
-
Operant conditioning
Response to one stimulus in a pair following reinforcement (sucking, heart rate)
○
-
Eye tracking - more focus on face, (nose, eyes and mouth)
-
Evoked potentials
Electrical conductivity of the brain
○
Recording signles fro celebral cotex in infant brain, different area activates when
looking at faces compared to bodies
○
-
Infant Vision
Basic capacities present at birth
Can detect changes in brightness
○
Track a slow-moving object
○
Nothing to look at in urtero so no practise
○
-
Lack visual acuity
Ability to perceive detail
○
Optimal at about 20-25cms
○
-
Initial limitations in visual accommodation
Ability to focus on objects at different distances
§
Takes 6 months to 1 year before can see as well as an adult
○
-
Colour vision present at birth
Mature at 2 to 3 months
○
-
Visual perception
Visual preferences
Patterns that have light-dark transitions; contour & contrast. Stripy shirt
○
Displays that contain movement
○
Moderately complex patterns
○
The human face - annate faces and rapidly require knowledge about faces - to
promote relationship with care giver for survival
○
-
Object perception
Newborns appear to have object constancy (i.e., perception that the object stays the same
depite changes in sensations)
Size constancy
○
Shape constancy - idea shape stays the same when it moves
○
-
Depth perception
The visual cliff: Gibson and Walk (1960)
7 months crawler will not cross the cliff
○
Can perceive the cliff by 2 months - not scared and don’t aviod as mum is in charge
○
Fear of drop-off requires crawling
○
-
Infants have intuitive theories - organised systems of knowledge - that allow them to make
sense of the world
-
Infant Hearing
Can hear well before birth
-
Can recognise their mothers voice, even in utero
-
Newborns discriminate sounds that differ in loudness, duration, direction and pitch
-
Preference for complex sounds
-
Infants respons to human speech and prefer speech over non-speech sounds
-
Early differentiation between tones (happy and sad)
-
Infant Taste and Smell
Taste
Newborns can distinguish between sweet, bitter and sour tastes
Show a clear preference for sweet
§
○
-
Smell (olfaction)
Works well at birth
○
Will turn head away from unpleasent smells
○
All babies prefer the smell of human milk over formula, even if previously consumed
formula
○
At 1 to 2 weeks, breast-fed babies can recognise the smell of their mother
○
-
Infant Touch
Senses of touch and motion develop before birth
Sensitivity to tactile stimulation develops in a cephalocaudal (head to tail) direction -
most sensitive to cheek then leg
○
Touch soothes a fussy baby - chest to chest
○
Massage helps premature infants to gain weight, be more relaxed, and develop
more regulate sleep patterns
○
-
Sensitivity to warm and cold at birth
-
Integrating Sensory Information
At birth, sensory functions are integrated
-
Intermodal perception: the way different sensations are combined to form perception of
unitary events or objects
Helps babies perceive and respond appropriately to the objects and people they
encounter
○
Improves throughout childhood and adolescenes
○
-
Sensitive periods
A time period when certain sensory experiences are vital in determining the
organisation of the brain
○
-
Development of Attention
Infants are 'captured by' something
They have an orienting system - scared of threatening objects such as spiders and
snakes
○
-
Children are 'directed toward' something
They have a focusing system that seeks out and maintain attention to events
○
-
From infancy:
Increase in attention span
○
Better able to concentrate on a task
○
Attention becomes more selective
○
More systematic perceptual searches in orfer to achieve goals and solve problems
○
-
The Adolescent
Attention
Ability to sustain attention improves considerably (myelination - axon fatty part)
-
More efficient at ignoring distractions
-
Divided attention improves - able to hear 2 different conversation or listen to music and
study
-
Problems with attention
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Prevalence worldwide = 5% of children - 3 times more common in boys than girls
○
First ADHD cases describe in 1800s
○
Strong genetic component - 76% heritability
○
Noradrenaline and dopamine are key neurotransmitters in brain regions associated
with ADHD
○
Environment risk factors: prematurity, intra-utero exposure to tobacco and low
birth weight
○
Characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and/or impulsicity -
symptoms must be present prior to 12 years of age
○
Inattention:
Individual has difficulty initiating, remaining engaged in and completing a task
Distractibility, forgetfulness, frequent difficulty keeping track of objects,
difficulty listening when spoken to or planning and executing actions
□
Careless mistakes to daily activities□
§
○
Hyperactivity:
Excessive physical activity
§
Constant feelings of restlessness
§
Non-goal-directed motor activity - walking around for the sake of walk no
purpose or goal
§
Frequency fidgeting or squirming in seat
§
Inability to play quiet
§
Talking too much, running around or climbing when it is inappropriate
§
○
Impulsivity
Difficulty in delaying an action or response even when it is known that this
action will have negative consequences
§
Associated with the need for immediate over delayed gratification, even when
the postponement would lead to better results
Difficulty waiting one's turn to speak - blurting out answers before the
question is finished
□
§
○
Differences in presentation according to age - more difficult to detect in preschool
years since a lot of the ADHA behaviours are normal in this age group
○
ADHD symptoms, if left untreated, often persist into adulthood - 15% for full
syndrome and 40-60 for cases in partial remission
○
Persistence of symptoms associated with severity
○
-
The Adult
Sensory and perceptual capacities decline gradually in normal adults
Begins in early adulthood, becomes noticeable in 40s and are typical by age 65 +
○
Can compensate for the deficits
○
-
Losses take two forms
Sensory thresholds are higher1.
Perceptual abilities decline in some aging adults2.
-
Sensory/Perceptual problems
Visions
Pupils become smaller and do not respond as much when lighting conditions change
○
Lens becomes denser and less flexible
Cannot accommodate to bring objects at different distances into focus
§
Decreased ability to accommodate objects close to the eye
§
○
-
Attention
Selective attention declines
More easily distracted from task
○
Attend to irrelevant cues
○
-
Novel, complex tasks more difficult
Familiar and well-practiced skills remains
○
-
Hearing
Most older adults have at least mild hearing loss
-
Loss of high-pitched sounds
More common and earlier in men
○
-
Some difficulty with speech perception
May be cognitive or sensory
○
Background noise a problem
○
-
Novel and complex tasks problematic
-
Memory and Information Processing
Information-Processing Theories
Computer analogy - an ability to systematically convert input to output
-
Emphasizes basic mental processes: attention, preception, memory and decision-making
-
Memory Systems
Memory processes
Encoding: getting information into the system
○
Consolidation: processing and organising information
○
Storage: holding information in long-term memory
○
Retrieval: information is obtained from long-term memory
○
A constructive, not static process
○
-
The Infant
Can habituate at birth
-
Newborns can Imitate actions
-
Infants imitate a novel action after a delay - ability increases with age
Changes in encoding
○
Changes in retention
○
-
Task dependent - reduce demands remember earlier on. Complex harder to remember till
older age
-
The child
Improvements in basic capacities
Maturation of the hippocampus and other parts of the brain invovled in
consolidation of memory
○
Short-term memory capactiy improves, particularly between ages 6 to 13 years
○
-
Speed and efficiency of mental processing improves
Allows simultaneous mental operations
○
Basic mental processes become automatic; frees working memory
○
Greater knowledge of a domain increases the speed with which new, related
information can be processed
○
-
Memory strategies
Improvement in memory strategies (mnemonics)
Increased use of rehearsal at about 7 years1.
Master organisation (i.e., classifying items into meaningful groups) by 9 to 10 years2.
Elaboration (i.e., actively creating meaningful link between items) - last strategy to
develop
3.
-
Knowledge about memory
Improvements in knowledhe about memory
Metamemory: knowledge of memory and understanding how to monitor and
regulate memory processes
Present in young children
§
Improve with age
§
○
-
Autobiographical Memories
Childhood amnesia: few autobiographical memories from 1st years of life
Limited working memory capacity
○
Lack sufficient language skills
○
Lack a sense of self
○
Early verbatim memories are unstable and likely to be lost
○
-
Adolescent
New stratgies emerge (e.g., elaboration; approach to study)
-
Strategies are used deliberately and selectively
-
Basic capacities increase (e.g., processing speed)
-
Knowledge base increase
-
Metacognition improves
-
Adult
Domain specific knowledge base increase (expertise)
Think more effectively
Remember more new information
§
Solve problems effectively and efficiently
§
Automaticity
§
○
-
The older adult and cognitive abilities
Some change in inevitable
-
More diversity in late adulthood than at any other stage development
-
Mojor categories of cognitive functioning
Cognitive mechanics
Basic memory processes
○
Fluid
○
Content free
○
Decline in late adulthood
○
-
Cognitive pragmatics
Intellectual problems in which culture-based knowledge and skills are primary
○
Crystallised
○
Less prone to decline with age
○
-
The aging brain
Brain weight and brain mass gradually decrease during adulthood
Accelerates after 60 years
○
More so in some areas of the brain than others (steady decrease in fluid
intelligence)
○
Moderated by health status
○
Genetic factos (APOE gene)
○
Lufestyle choic e.g., physical activity
○
-
Less blood flow to brain
Degeneration of neurons
○
-
Neurotransmitters change
-
Cognitive Plasticity
Plasticity: the ability of other neurons to take over the functions of neurons that have
been damaged or lost
-
Ageing brains can respond positively to enrichment and training
Cognitive training
○
Environmental factors influence the course of cognitive functioning in adulthood
○
Interventions might allow for maintenance of functioning
○
-
Age related brain disorders
Organic brain syndromes: Patholgical states of the brain caused by physical damage of
brain tissue
-
Multi-infarct dementia
Accounts for 10-20% of organic brain syndrome in adults
○
Risk factors: hypertension; diabetes' mellitus; advanced age; male; smoke
○
Sudden onset
○
Importance of early diagnosis
○
-
Alzheimer's disease
Accounts for 50 to 60 % of organic brain syndrome patients over 65 years of age
○
Prevalence rises with age
1% in 60 - 65 years old
§
24-36% in thoes > 85 years
§
○
The course of the disease in usually between 7 to 10 years
○
Main risk factor is chronological age
○
-
Explainign memory decline
Changes in basic capacities
Decline in capactiy to use working memory to operate actively and simultaneously
on multiple pieces of information
○
More difficulty ignoring irrelevant information
○
Attention becomes more effortful (motivation)
○
-
Older adults learn new material more slowly, learn it less well, remember less
More problems with recall than recognition
○
-
Sensory abilityies decline
-
Uncorrected refracted error
Cataracst
Age related maculat degeneration
Glaocoma
Diabetic
Other
Week 5 Lecture
Tuesday, 27 March 2018
9:50 PM
Sensation, Perception, Attention and Memory
Overview
Sensation
-
Perception
-
Attention
-
Memory
-
In
Infancy
○
Childhood
○
Adolescence
○
Older age
○
Sensation - detection and transmission
Perception - interpretation
Attention - ability to focus
The senses
How many senses are there?
Between 9-21
Vision
§
Hearing
§
Taste
§
Smell
§
Touch
§
○
-
Proprioception - body position
-
Equilibrioception - balance
-
Interoception - operation of internal organs
-
Methods of studying infant perception
Preferential looking - what they prefer to look at
Duration of looking at one of a pair
○
-
Habituation - draw bridge study
Discrimination learning
○
'learning to be bored'
○
-
Operant conditioning
Response to one stimulus in a pair following reinforcement (sucking, heart rate)
○
-
Eye tracking - more focus on face, (nose, eyes and mouth)
-
Evoked potentials
Electrical conductivity of the brain
○
Recording signles fro celebral cotex in infant brain, different area activates when
looking at faces compared to bodies
○
-
Infant Vision
Basic capacities present at birth
Can detect changes in brightness
○
Track a slow-moving object
○
Nothing to look at in urtero so no practise
○
-
Lack visual acuity
Ability to perceive detail
○
Optimal at about 20-25cms
○
-
Initial limitations in visual accommodation
Ability to focus on objects at different distances
§
Takes 6 months to 1 year before can see as well as an adult
○
-
Colour vision present at birth
Mature at 2 to 3 months
○
-
Visual perception
Visual preferences
Patterns that have light-dark transitions; contour & contrast. Stripy shirt
○
Displays that contain movement
○
Moderately complex patterns
○
The human face - annate faces and rapidly require knowledge about faces - to
promote relationship with care giver for survival
○
-
Object perception
Newborns appear to have object constancy (i.e., perception that the object stays the same
depite changes in sensations)
Size constancy
○
Shape constancy - idea shape stays the same when it moves
○
-
Depth perception
The visual cliff: Gibson and Walk (1960)
7 months crawler will not cross the cliff
○
Can perceive the cliff by 2 months - not scared and don’t aviod as mum is in charge
○
Fear of drop-off requires crawling
○
-
Infants have intuitive theories - organised systems of knowledge - that allow them to make
sense of the world
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Infant Hearing
Can hear well before birth
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Can recognise their mothers voice, even in utero
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Newborns discriminate sounds that differ in loudness, duration, direction and pitch
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Preference for complex sounds
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Infants respons to human speech and prefer speech over non-speech sounds
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Early differentiation between tones (happy and sad)
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Infant Taste and Smell
Taste
Newborns can distinguish between sweet, bitter and sour tastes
Show a clear preference for sweet
§
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Smell (olfaction)
Works well at birth
○
Will turn head away from unpleasent smells
○
All babies prefer the smell of human milk over formula, even if previously consumed
formula
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At 1 to 2 weeks, breast-fed babies can recognise the smell of their mother
○
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Infant Touch
Senses of touch and motion develop before birth
Sensitivity to tactile stimulation develops in a cephalocaudal (head to tail) direction -
most sensitive to cheek then leg
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Touch soothes a fussy baby - chest to chest
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Massage helps premature infants to gain weight, be more relaxed, and develop
more regulate sleep patterns
○
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Sensitivity to warm and cold at birth
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Integrating Sensory Information
At birth, sensory functions are integrated
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Intermodal perception: the way different sensations are combined to form perception of
unitary events or objects
Helps babies perceive and respond appropriately to the objects and people they
encounter
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Improves throughout childhood and adolescenes
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Sensitive periods
A time period when certain sensory experiences are vital in determining the
organisation of the brain
○
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Development of Attention
Infants are 'captured by' something
They have an orienting system - scared of threatening objects such as spiders and
snakes
○
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Children are 'directed toward' something
They have a focusing system that seeks out and maintain attention to events
○
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From infancy:
Increase in attention span
○
Better able to concentrate on a task
○
Attention becomes more selective
○
More systematic perceptual searches in orfer to achieve goals and solve problems
○
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The Adolescent
Attention
Ability to sustain attention improves considerably (myelination - axon fatty part)
-
More efficient at ignoring distractions
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Divided attention improves - able to hear 2 different conversation or listen to music and
study
-
Problems with attention
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Prevalence worldwide = 5% of children - 3 times more common in boys than girls
○
First ADHD cases describe in 1800s
○
Strong genetic component - 76% heritability
○
Noradrenaline and dopamine are key neurotransmitters in brain regions associated
with ADHD
○
Environment risk factors: prematurity, intra-utero exposure to tobacco and low
birth weight
○
Characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and/or impulsicity -
symptoms must be present prior to 12 years of age
○
Inattention:
Individual has difficulty initiating, remaining engaged in and completing a task
Distractibility, forgetfulness, frequent difficulty keeping track of objects,
difficulty listening when spoken to or planning and executing actions
□
Careless mistakes to daily activities□
§
○
Hyperactivity:
Excessive physical activity
§
Constant feelings of restlessness
§
Non-goal-directed motor activity - walking around for the sake of walk no
purpose or goal
§
Frequency fidgeting or squirming in seat
§
Inability to play quiet
§
Talking too much, running around or climbing when it is inappropriate
§
○
Impulsivity
Difficulty in delaying an action or response even when it is known that this
action will have negative consequences
§
Associated with the need for immediate over delayed gratification, even when
the postponement would lead to better results
Difficulty waiting one's turn to speak - blurting out answers before the
question is finished
□
§
○
Differences in presentation according to age - more difficult to detect in preschool
years since a lot of the ADHA behaviours are normal in this age group
○
ADHD symptoms, if left untreated, often persist into adulthood - 15% for full
syndrome and 40-60 for cases in partial remission
○
Persistence of symptoms associated with severity
○
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The Adult
Sensory and perceptual capacities decline gradually in normal adults
Begins in early adulthood, becomes noticeable in 40s and are typical by age 65 +
○
Can compensate for the deficits
○
-
Losses take two forms
Sensory thresholds are higher1.
Perceptual abilities decline in some aging adults2.
-
Sensory/Perceptual problems
Visions
Pupils become smaller and do not respond as much when lighting conditions change
○
Lens becomes denser and less flexible
Cannot accommodate to bring objects at different distances into focus
§
Decreased ability to accommodate objects close to the eye
§
○
-
Attention
Selective attention declines
More easily distracted from task
○
Attend to irrelevant cues
○
-
Novel, complex tasks more difficult
Familiar and well-practiced skills remains
○
-
Hearing
Most older adults have at least mild hearing loss
-
Loss of high-pitched sounds
More common and earlier in men
○
-
Some difficulty with speech perception
May be cognitive or sensory
○
Background noise a problem
○
-
Novel and complex tasks problematic
-
Memory and Information Processing
Information-Processing Theories
Computer analogy - an ability to systematically convert input to output
-
Emphasizes basic mental processes: attention, preception, memory and decision-making
-
Memory Systems
Memory processes
Encoding: getting information into the system
○
Consolidation: processing and organising information
○
Storage: holding information in long-term memory
○
Retrieval: information is obtained from long-term memory
○
A constructive, not static process
○
-
The Infant
Can habituate at birth
-
Newborns can Imitate actions
-
Infants imitate a novel action after a delay - ability increases with age
Changes in encoding
○
Changes in retention
○
-
Task dependent - reduce demands remember earlier on. Complex harder to remember till
older age
-
The child
Improvements in basic capacities
Maturation of the hippocampus and other parts of the brain invovled in
consolidation of memory
○
Short-term memory capactiy improves, particularly between ages 6 to 13 years
○
-
Speed and efficiency of mental processing improves
Allows simultaneous mental operations
○
Basic mental processes become automatic; frees working memory
○
Greater knowledge of a domain increases the speed with which new, related
information can be processed
○
-
Memory strategies
Improvement in memory strategies (mnemonics)
Increased use of rehearsal at about 7 years1.
Master organisation (i.e., classifying items into meaningful groups) by 9 to 10 years2.
Elaboration (i.e., actively creating meaningful link between items) - last strategy to
develop
3.
-
Knowledge about memory
Improvements in knowledhe about memory
Metamemory: knowledge of memory and understanding how to monitor and
regulate memory processes
Present in young children
§
Improve with age
§
○
-
Autobiographical Memories
Childhood amnesia: few autobiographical memories from 1st years of life
Limited working memory capacity
○
Lack sufficient language skills
○
Lack a sense of self
○
Early verbatim memories are unstable and likely to be lost
○
-
Adolescent
New stratgies emerge (e.g., elaboration; approach to study)
-
Strategies are used deliberately and selectively
-
Basic capacities increase (e.g., processing speed)
-
Knowledge base increase
-
Metacognition improves
-
Adult
Domain specific knowledge base increase (expertise)
Think more effectively
Remember more new information
§
Solve problems effectively and efficiently
§
Automaticity
§
○
-
The older adult and cognitive abilities
Some change in inevitable
-
More diversity in late adulthood than at any other stage development
-
Mojor categories of cognitive functioning
Cognitive mechanics
Basic memory processes
○
Fluid
○
Content free
○
Decline in late adulthood
○
-
Cognitive pragmatics
Intellectual problems in which culture-based knowledge and skills are primary
○
Crystallised
○
Less prone to decline with age
○
-
The aging brain
Brain weight and brain mass gradually decrease during adulthood
Accelerates after 60 years
○
More so in some areas of the brain than others (steady decrease in fluid
intelligence)
○
Moderated by health status
○
Genetic factos (APOE gene)
○
Lufestyle choic e.g., physical activity
○
-
Less blood flow to brain
Degeneration of neurons
○
-
Neurotransmitters change
-
Cognitive Plasticity
Plasticity: the ability of other neurons to take over the functions of neurons that have
been damaged or lost
-
Ageing brains can respond positively to enrichment and training
Cognitive training
○
Environmental factors influence the course of cognitive functioning in adulthood
○
Interventions might allow for maintenance of functioning
○
-
Age related brain disorders
Organic brain syndromes: Patholgical states of the brain caused by physical damage of
brain tissue
-
Multi-infarct dementia
Accounts for 10-20% of organic brain syndrome in adults
○
Risk factors: hypertension; diabetes' mellitus; advanced age; male; smoke
○
Sudden onset
○
Importance of early diagnosis
○
-
Alzheimer's disease
Accounts for 50 to 60 % of organic brain syndrome patients over 65 years of age
○
Prevalence rises with age
1% in 60 - 65 years old
§
24-36% in thoes > 85 years
§
○
The course of the disease in usually between 7 to 10 years
○
Main risk factor is chronological age
○
-
Explainign memory decline
Changes in basic capacities
Decline in capactiy to use working memory to operate actively and simultaneously
on multiple pieces of information
○
More difficulty ignoring irrelevant information
○
Attention becomes more effortful (motivation)
○
-
Older adults learn new material more slowly, learn it less well, remember less
More problems with recall than recognition
○
-
Sensory abilityies decline
-
Uncorrected refracted error
Cataracst
Age related maculat degeneration
Glaocoma
Diabetic
Other
Week 5 Lecture
Tuesday, 27 March 2018 9:50 PM
Document Summary
Preferential looking - what they prefer to look at. Duration of looking at one of a pair. Response to one stimulus in a pair following reinforcement (sucking, heart rate) Eye tracking - more focus on face, (nose, eyes and mouth) Recording signles fro celebral cotex in infant brain, different area activates when looking at faces compared to bodies. Nothing to look at in urtero so no practise. Ability to focus on objects at different distances. Takes 6 months to 1 year before can see as well as an adult. Patterns that have light-dark transitions; contour & contrast. The human face - annate faces and rapidly require knowledge about faces - to promote relationship with care giver for survival. Newborns appear to have object constancy (i. e. , perception that the object stays the s depite changes in sensations) Shape constancy - idea shape stays the same when it moves. 7 months crawler will not cross the cliff.
