PSY 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Dementia, Escalator, Habituation
Chapter 5
• Developing Through the Life Span
o How do we change physically, cognitively, and socially from the womb to the tomb?
o Periods: Infancy and Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood
o Major issues in Developmental Psychology
o Nature/Nurture: How do genetic inheritance (nature) and experience (nurture)
influence our development?
o Continuity/Stages: Is development a gradual, continuous process like riding an
escalator, or does it proceed through a series of separate stages, like climbing rungs on
a ladder?
o Stability/Change: Do our early personality and intellectual traits persist through life, or
do we become different people as we age?
o Prenatal Development and the Newborn
o Conception
o a “pe ells aoud a ou. As oe spe peetates the egg’s jelllike outer
coating, a series of chemical events begins that will cause sperm and egg to fuse into a
single cell. Development commences.
o Prenatal Development
o (a) The embryo grows and develops rapidly. At 40 days, the spine is visible and the arms
and legs are beginning to grow. (b) Five days later, the inch-log eo’s popotios
have begun to change.
o (c) By the end of the second month, when the fetal period begins, facial features,
hads, ad feet hae foed. d As the fetus etes the fouth oth, it’s about 3
ounces and could fit in the palm of your hand.
o Prenatal exposure to teratogens, which are harmful agents such as viruses and drugs,
increases risk to problems later in life. For example, smoking during pregnancy
increases risk of ADHD in children.
o On the bright side, good prenatal nutrition has been linked to positive outcomes, such
as having a high IQ in childhood. Improved prenatal nutrition is one possible
explanation of historical increases in intelligence test scores.
o The Competent Newborn
o Contrary to William James’ assetio that the ae little lak slates that epeiee
the old as a looig, uzzig ofusio, eos oe ito the old euipped
with automatic responses ideally suited for survival.
o For example, when something touches a ifat’s heek, it efleiel tus toad that
touch opens its mouth, and roots for a nipple. And when and if it finds a nipple, it
begins sucking. An infant will also reliably turn its head toward a human voice.
o Infants also show habituation—a simple form of learning that occurs when an organism
shows a decrease in response to some stimulus after repeated presentation of that
stimulus. (living near train tracks and hearing it at night and while studying)
o Studies of habituation in infants reveals that they are sensitive to novelty in their
eioets, ad this is a ido ito the ifat’s etal poesses.
o Infancy and Childhood
o Physical Development
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o Brain Development
o Brain Development unfolds through maturation—a biologically programmed growth
process. In humans, at birth, the brain is immature, but as the child matures, neural
etoks go ieasigl oe ople. As the do, the ifat’s apailities suge…
o Motor Development
o As a ifat’s usles ad eous sste atue, oe opliated skills emerge.
Babies roll over and then sit. They then crawl on all fours, and as the cerebellum
develops, they eventually walk, usually around a year old.
o Cognitive Development
o Cognition refers to all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing,
remembering, and communicating.
o Infant Memory
o Our earliest memories seldom predate our third birthday—a phenomenon called
infantile amnesia. However, infants can learn. For example, in one experiment, infants
learned that they could move a mobile by kicking their legs.
o Piaget’s Theo ad Cuet Thikig
o Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget devoted his career to understanding how
ogitio deelops. His oe idea as that the hild’s id deelops though a seies of
stages, and that the driving force of cognitive development is our unceasing desire to
make sense of our experiences.
o Schema- a mental model of something in the world (learning the schema for cow from
picture books)
o Assimilation- the process of interpreting experiences in terms of our schemas (seeing a
oose ad allig it a o the gettig oeted that it’s a oose.
o Accommodation- the process of adjusting schemas (accommodating schema for large
shaggy animals to modify the schema to include mommy, baby moose, and more)
o Sensorimotor (Birth to age 2) - Experiencing the world through senses and actions
(looking, hearing touching, mouthing, and grasping) (Object permanence, Stranger
anxiety). Preoperational (2 to about 6 or 7) - Representing things with words and
images, using intuitive rather than logical reasoning (Pretend play and egocentrism).
(Symiotic functioning) Concrete operational (7 to 11) - thinking logically about concrete
events; grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations
(Conservation and mathematical transformations). Formal operational (12 to
adulthood)- Abstract reasoning (Abstract logic and Potential for mature moral
reasoning)
o Infants lack object permanence- the awareness that objects continue to exist when not
perceived. Piaget thought that this capability emerges suddenly around 8 months, but
developmental psychologists now believe it emerges gradually.
o The also eliee that Piaget ad folloes udeestiated oug hilde’s
competence. For example, developmental psychologist Karen Wynn has found that
infants are capable of very primitive math.
o Piaget believed that until about the age of 7, children are incapable of basic mental
operations. For example, he demonstrated that children lack the concept of
conservation—the principle that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape.
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Document Summary
Development commences: prenatal development (a) the embryo grows and develops rapidly. For example, smoking during pregnancy increases risk of adhd in children: on the bright side, good prenatal nutrition has been linked to positive outcomes, such as having a high iq in childhood. And when and if it finds a nipple, it begins sucking. An infant will also reliably turn its head toward a human voice. Infancy and childhood: physical development, brain development, brain development unfolds through maturation a biologically programmed growth process. In humans, at birth, the brain is immature, but as the child matures, neural (cid:374)et(cid:449)o(cid:396)ks g(cid:396)o(cid:449) i(cid:374)(cid:272)(cid:396)easi(cid:374)gl(cid:455) (cid:373)o(cid:396)e (cid:272)o(cid:373)ple(cid:454). As the(cid:455) do, the i(cid:374)fa(cid:374)t"s (cid:272)apa(cid:271)ilities su(cid:396)ge : motor development, as a(cid:374) i(cid:374)fa(cid:374)t"s (cid:373)us(cid:272)les a(cid:374)d (cid:374)e(cid:396)(cid:448)ous s(cid:455)ste(cid:373) (cid:373)atu(cid:396)e, (cid:373)o(cid:396)e (cid:272)o(cid:373)pli(cid:272)ated skills emerge. They then crawl on all fours, and as the cerebellum develops, they eventually walk, usually around a year old: cognitive development, cognition refers to all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
