PSYC2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Dishabituation, Psychophysiology, Electrodermal Activity
16 Mar 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
It was once thought that infants were born dead and blind. Although far fro(cid:373) (cid:373)ature, all of the i(cid:374)fa(cid:374)t"s se(cid:374)ses are fu(cid:374)(cid:272)tio(cid:374)i(cid:374)g: they even prefer some sights, smells, tastes and sounds over others. The chemical senses (taste and smell) develop early. Newborn infants are also sensitive to pain and touch. Vision and hearing develop rapidly over the first year. Measures of attention: behavioural vs. psychophysiological measures. Behavioural: looking time, sucking, head/eye movements, arm/leg movements, vocalizations (crying, facial expressions. Psychophysiological: heart rate, respiration rate, salivation, skin conductance, brain wave activity (eeg, erp) fmri, pet, nirs. Non-verbal methods: preference method, habituation-dishabituation method, operant conditioning method. Methodologies of infant perception: visual preference paradigm. Fantz (1958, 1961) placed babies in a looking chamber and presented them several visual stimuli. If they spend more time gazing at one pattern more than another, it is assumed they can discriminate between them. Infants preferred a face-like pattern over other patterned or unpatterned discs: habituation/dishabituation.
