PSYC26 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Motor Action F.C., Object Permanence, Habituation
Document Summary
Initial work first to talk about nature of infant cognition: notion that knowledge was gained for infants, talked about importance of infants constructing knowledge for themselves. Infants constructed their own knowledge and mental representations: fundamental basis centered around motor activities. Problems with piagetian approach to infant cognition: piaget u(cid:374)deresti(cid:373)ated i(cid:374)fa(cid:374)ts" (cid:272)og(cid:374)iti(cid:448)e a(cid:271)ilities researchers attacked these notions. Set too high of a bar for infants to demonstrate their cognitive knowledge. Needed a different way to assess cognitive abilities now. Instead look at something else: looking behaviour we know that they can look at things and not look at things. Demonstrate knowledge in terms of visual behaviour: consequence of this approach idea that infants have cognitive abilities. Robert fantz and preferential looking behavior also not new. What can fixation paradigms demonstrate about infant cognitive capacities: discrimination of perceptual characteristics. Circle vs. square if infants can discriminate between them, we assume that they will look more at one than the other.
