PSY-PC 2500 Study Guide - Spring 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Spinal Cord, Heart Rate, Syndrome
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PSY-PC 2500
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Toby Irenshtain
Infancy Test 1
Study Guide
2/5/18
What is an infant?
- Infant = incapable of speech
- Motor and size limitations
- Age
- Walking and talking starts at about year 1
- Infancy = 0-2; Toddler = 2-3; Preschooler = 3+
- Newborn=less then one month; neonate = hours old; baby = very young child; toddler = 1-
3; child = <12
Research methods for studying infants
- Infants control where they loko and for how long and how they suck
- Preferential Looking Technique - Display box showing baby something and looking at it, while
measuring how long the baby looks at each thing
- Created by Robert Fantz (1960s) - father of early methods of studying infants
- Habituation - a decrease in responsiveness upon repeated exposure to a stimulus
- When combined with preferential -looking, has positive research implications
- Changes in sucking patterns (DeCasper et al study) through contingency
- You present different things based on their sucking - let them choose by sucking
Historical and Theoretical Approaches to Research
- What we believe about infants influences our behavior
- Knowing as much as we can about infants makes it most likely that we will provide the best
environment for them
- Early thoughts about infants included the idea that neonates couldn't see, hear, or experience pain,
mostly because they are not very responsive and there were not many ways to tell “what's going on in
there”
- In ancient times, children were seen as property and infanticide was allowed
- 1900s-1979s encouraged parents to bottle feed their infants on schedule (not breastfeed) and to not
go out of their way to touch/hold their babies
- Babies need to learn that they are not in control ideology
- 2000s encourages parents to breastfeed on demand (not scheduled), almost always be touching their
child (wearing the baby) and show lots of affection
- Before 1850s, there were no disposable diapers, even cotton diapers were not readily available and no
washer/dryers in homes, no infant toys or baby food
- Original Sin - children are inherently selfish egoists who must be restrained by society - argued by
Thomas Hobbes, wherein children are seen as passive to societal influences
- Innage Purity - Children are born with a sense of right and wrong that is often corrupted by society -
argued by Jean Jacques Rousseau, wherein children are seen as active
- Set the scene for Nativism, which is the idea that the infant comes into the world with
abilities, ideas, etc
- Basic knowledge - what an object is, etc and basic abilities (reflexes)
- Core knowledge theories
- Tabula Rasa - Children are neither inherently good or bad, but their experiences impact their
development, argued by John Locke, wherein children are seen as passive to societal influences
- Set the stage for Empiricism, which is the idea that the infant comes into the world needing
to learn most everything about the world
- Related to learning theories such as classical and operant conditioning
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Toby Irenshtain
Infancy Test 1
Study Guide
2/5/18
Nature and Nurture
- Innate means different things to different people, is hard to prove, so one should not use it unless
they define it
- Recursive Environment Problem - environment can be defined by inside or outside body, and
something inside the body can be the environment for something happening within it
- It is not possible to reliably separate factors that affect development into ideas of nurture and nature
- It will always be a combination of the two
Methods of Research
- Steps: Ask a question, Conduct a study, Write it up, Spread the results
- Hypothesis should be derived from: Field of interest, scientific literature, observation, relay life
problems
- Consider feasibility and originality
- Theories guide our research, explain facts, are testable, predict future behaviors/abilities, and are
useful
- Reliability
- If we repeated the study/coding procedures, would we obtain the same results?
- If two people coding a video of a session can’t agree on what they're seeing - this is a major
problem
- If you don't have reliability, you don't have anything
- Validity
- Did we observe the right behaviors and interpret them correctly?
- Are we measuring what we think we're measuring? (Piaget’s Object Permanence ≠
- You can have reliability without validity, but no validity if you don't have reliability
- How do our findings relate to our world outside the lab?
- Ecological Validity (ie Generalizability)
- Generalizability vs Control
- Observational studies have great generalizability, not a lot of control
- Lab studies have a lot of control, can be not so great on generalizability
- Biases in Infant behavior
- They tend to look at first thing more then subsequent things
- They tend to get tired, inattentive over time
- Sometimes right side preferences
- Tend to prefer looking at a patterned stimulus over a plain stimulus
- Solution: Counterbalancing
- Presenting stimuli in a way that the biases are accounted for
- Ex: order of stimulus presentation (Right/Left) should be random
- Controlled Variables: Time of day, time since last nap, time since last mean
- Test Hypothesis: Detailed plan of the study
Study Designs
- Qualitative Studies
- Descriptive, Observational
- Very small sample size
- No numerical Data collected
- Get new ideas or discover how to test
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Walking and talking starts at about year 1. Infancy = 0-2; toddler = 2-3; preschooler = 3+ Newborn=less then one month; neonate = hours old; baby = very young child; toddler = 1- Infants control where they loko and for how long and how they suck. Preferential looking technique - display box showing baby something and looking at it, while measuring how long the baby looks at each thing. Created by robert fantz (1960s) - father of early methods of studying infants. Habituation - a decrease in responsiveness upon repeated exposure to a stimulus. When combined with preferential -looking, has positive research implications. Changes in sucking patterns (decasper et al study) through contingency. You present different things based on their sucking - let them choose by sucking. What we believe about infants influences our behavior. Knowing as much as we can about infants makes it most likely that we will provide the best environment for them.
