PSYCH211 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Object Permanence, Headache, Color Blindness

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH211
• Professor: Mathieu Le Corre

Document Summary

Core-knowledge theory: view that infants are born with rudimentary knowledge of the world that is elaborated upon, based on children"s experience. Children do not start from scratch; a few innate principles provide the starting point. Children rapidly acquire knowledge of objects, people, and living things. Language represents an evolutionarily important domain: this is why children may be very fluent in language at a young age, but not so skilled in problem solving, puzzles, and other mental tasks. If categorizing wasn"t possible, each experience would be novel. Important clues from perceptual features and their organization help children to categorize: ex. cylindrical shape with opening at 1 hand and a handle. Categories start out very broad/general and become more specific as infants learn the cues that distinguish subcategories: ex. category of animals is later broken up into specific species (dogs, cats, birds, etc. ) This violates the idea that objects exist permanently.