Download Stages 3 and 4: Secondary Circular Reactions

Chapter Six
The First Two Years: Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor Intelligence
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Sensoritmotor intelligence: Piaget’s term for the intelligence during the
first period of cognitive development, when babies think by using their
senses and motor skills.
Stages 1 and 2: Primary Circular Reactions
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Examples: the infant sense motion, sucking, noise, and so on, and tried
to understand them.
Stage 1 (birth – 1 month) = Reflexes
Stage 2 (1 – 4 months) = First Acquired Adaptations
- adaptations of reflexes, i.e., sucking a pacifier differently from a
nipple; grabbing a bottle to suck it.
Stages 3 and 4: Secondary Circular Reactions
• The infant is responsive to other people and to toys and other objects
that can be manipulated.
• Stage 3 (4 – 8 months) = Infants interact positively with people and
objects to making interesting events last
- repetition
- Awareness of things
Stages 3 and 4: Secondary Circular Reactions
• Stage 4 (8 months to 1 year)= New Adaptation and Anticipation
- goal-directed behavior (behavior is more deliberate and purposeful)
- object permanence: the realization that objects and people exist
even when they cannot be seen, touches, or heard.
Stages 5 and 6: Tertiary Circular Reactions
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experimentation and exploration
- involves creativity, action, and ideas
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Stage 5 (12 – 18 months) = New means through active experimentation
– little scientist: actively experiments without anticipating the results.
– Babies “getting into everything”
Stages 5 and 6: Tertiary Circular Reactions, cont.
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Stage 6 (18 – 24 months) = New means through mental combinations
– mental combinations—sequence of mental actions
actual performance
tried out before
– deferred imitation—perception of something someone else does
(modeling), then performing action at a later time
Piaget and Modern Research
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fMRI: functional magnetic resonance imaging measuring technique for
brain activity and neurological responses – indicates activation anywhere in
the brain.
First three years are prime time for cognitive development
Affordances
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Affordances—opportunities for perception and interaction offered by
environment
How something is perceived and acted upon depends on
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past experiences
current developmental level
sensory awareness of opportunities
immediate needs and motivation
Sudden Drops
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Visual cliff: (measures depth perception), an experimental apparatus
designed to provide the illusion of a sudden drop-off between one
horizontal surface and another.
- depends on prior experience
Movement and People
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Dynamic perception: from birth perception is primed to focus on
movement and change
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Infants love motion – as soon as they can they move their own bodies.
Babies are fascinated by people
Infants most interested in emotional affordances of their caregivers
Memory, cont.
• Very early memories possible if
– situation similar to real life
– motivation high
– special measures aid retrieval by acting as reminders
Reminders and Repetition
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Reminder session: any perceptual experience that helps a person recall an
idea or experience.
A Little Older, A Little More Memory
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After 6 months infants capable of retaining information for longer
periods of time with less reminding
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Deferred imitation apparent after end of first year
By middle of the 2nd year, children capable of remembering and
reenacting complex sequences
Language: What Develops in Two Years?
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Most impressive intellectual achievement of young child and also of all
humans
The Universal Sequence of Language Development
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Children around the world have the same sequence of early language
development but
– timing and depth of linguistic ability vary
First Noises and Gestures
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Baby talk: high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive ways adults talk to
babies
Vocalization – they are noisy
– crying
– Cooing
Babbling: extended repetition of certain syllables, such as ba-ba-ba that
begins around 6 or 7 months old.
– deaf babies do it later and less frequently, but are more advanced in
use of gestures
The Language Explosion and Early Grammar
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Naming explosion: sudden increase in infant vocabulary, especially nouns,
beginning at 18 months
Holophrase: single word that expresses a complete, meaningful thought
Grammar: all the methods that languages use to communicate meaning
Theories of Language Learning
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Even the very young use language well
Three schools of thought
– infants are taught language
– infants teach themselves
– social impulses foster infant language
Theory 1: Infants are Taught
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Learning is acquired, step by step, through associations and
reinforcements.
Infants associate objects with words they have heard often, especially if
reinforcement occurs.
– Babbling at 6 – 8 months is usually reinforced – repeats the sounds and
showers the baby with attention, praise, and food.
Theory 1: Infants are Taught (cont.)
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Parents are good instructors
Baby talk characterized by
• high pitch
• simpler vocabulary
• shorter sentence length
• more questions and commands
• repetition
Theory 2: Infants Teach Themselves
• Chomsky (1968, 1981) believe that language is too complex to be mastered
so early and so easily merely through step-by-step conditioning.
• Believed the human brain is uniquely equipped to learn language.
Theory Three: Social Impulses Foster Language
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Social-pragmatic—social reason for language: to communicate
Infants seek to respond, which shows their being social in nature— and
thus mutually dependent—by
- vocalizing
- babbling
- gesturing
- listening
- pointing