PSYC1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Chromosome Abnormality, Williams Syndrome
Development:
Big issues in development:
Nature vs nurture – how do genetics and experience influence behaviour
Sensitive/critical periods – are some experiences especially important?
Continuity/discontinuity – is development gradual and continuous or separate stages?
Stability/change – do our early personality traits persist or do we change?
Prenatal development and the newborn:
Conception
- sperm penetrates egg
Prenatal development
- Zygote formed (100 cells) which becomes diverse.
- 14 days becomes an embryo.
- 9 weeks: becomes fetus, teratogens can harm.
Fetal alcohol syndrome: cluster of severe developmental abnormalities including facial, small
malformed brains, and psychological impairments.
How important are our genes?
- Genotype – genetic makeup of individual ]
- Phenotype – expression of genes in appearance/behaviour.
Chromosomal abnormalities:
Down syndrome – extra chromosome 21
- 1/600 to 1/800 newborns
- distinctive phenotype
- specific deficit in verbal short – term memory
Williams Syndrome – deletion of material on chromosome 7
- 1/20,000 newborns
- specific deficit with visuo-spatial short term memory.
Nature or nurture?
Nature – behaviour by natural selection
- can natural selection explain our current obesity epidemic?
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Nurture – environment effects, upbringing, culture etc.
Twin biology:
Study effects of heredity and environment, two sets of twins, identical and fraternal.
Twin study procedures: behaviour geneticists study effects of shared and unique environments on total
or partial genetic makeup
- Minnesota twin studies: twins separated at 4 weeks
: brought together at 39 years
: similarities: both had dogs with same name
: both smoked and same brand of cigarettes.
: both married twice, named Linda first time and Betty
second
: One had son named James Allen and other James Alen.
: differences: different hairstyles
: one about to remarry again
The Competent Newborn:
Infants born with reflexes that aid survival, like rooting reflex that helps locate food.
Offspring cries are important signals for parents to provide nourishment. In animals, and in humans cries
are attended to and relieved.
Infant research methods:
Learning and reinforcement: 2 and 3 month olds learn that kicking legs moves their mobile.
- increase frequency of kicking to stimuli they remember
- doest iease feue to novel stimuli (non recognized).
Preferential looking paradigm:
- Infants learn associations between words and images
- If they have learned the word, they will look longer at the correct image
- Can also examine preference for different stimuli
Physical development:
Infants psychological development depends on their biological development.
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The developing brain:
At birth, brain contains 86 billion neurons.
- neural networks develop rapidly
- last area to develop is frontal cortex
enabling rational thought.
Maturation:
Development of brain unfolds based on genetic
instructions, leading to various bodily and mental
functions to occur in a sequence, e.g. standing before
walking.
Cephalocaudal principle: development to proceed in head to foot direction.
Proximodistal principle: development from medial to lateral.
Vision:
Newborns can focus on objects between 10 and 75cm from their face at birth.
Distance vision: 20/300 at birth
: develops to 20/50 by 6 months
Binocular vision: 14 weeks
Depth perception: 6 months (some evident by 2)
Hearing:
Turn head in direction of noise at birth
Can recognize mothers voice at 3 days
Distinguish between similar sounds at 1 month.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Nature vs nurture how do genetics and experience influence behaviour. Fetal alcohol syndrome: cluster of severe developmental abnormalities including facial, small malformed brains, and psychological impairments. Genotype genetic makeup of individual ] Phenotype expression of genes in appearance/behaviour. Specific deficit in verbal short term memory. Williams syndrome deletion of material on chromosome 7. Specific deficit with visuo-spatial short term memory. Study effects of heredity and environment, two sets of twins, identical and fraternal. Twin study procedures: behaviour geneticists study effects of shared and unique environments on total or partial genetic makeup. Minnesota twin studies: twins separated at 4 weeks. : similarities: both had dogs with same name. : both smoked and same brand of cigarettes. : both married twice, named linda first time and betty second. : one had son named james allen and other james alen. Infants born with reflexes that aid survival, like rooting reflex that helps locate food.
