Chapter 6 Early Cognitive Foundations:

Sensation, Perception, and Learning

Early Controversies about Sensory and Perceptual Development

Nature vs. nurture Nativist philosophers argue that many basic perceptual

abilities are innate. Empiricist philosophers believed infants are born tabula

rasa (blank slate) and must learn to interpret sensations. Enrichment vs. differentiation

Enrichment theory claims that sensory stimulation is often fragmented or confusing.

Differentiation theory argues that sensory stimulation provides all we need to interpret our experiences.

"Making Sense" of the Infant's Sensory and Perceptual Experiences

The preference method Two stimuli are presented simultaneously to see whether

infants will attend more to one of them than the other. Robert Fantz's looking chamber

The habituation method Most popular strategy for measuring infant sensory and

perceptual capabilities Infants habituate and dishabituate to many different kinds

of stimulation Evoked potentials: Brain wave patterns are studied. High-amplitude sucking: Infants are provided with a special

pacifier containing electrical circuitry that enables them to exert some control over the sensory environment.

Infant Sensory Capabilities

Vision Least developed sense in the newborn Visual acuity of newborn: 20/600

Hearing Reactions to voices: Especially attentive to high-pitched

feminine voices Reactions to language: Infants can discriminate phonemes

very early in life. Consequences of hearing loss: Could hamper language

development Taste and smell

Infants are born with preference for sweet tastes. Infants are born capable of detecting a variety of odors.

Touch, temperature, and pain: Proprioceptor senses are functioning at birth.

Infant Sensory Capabilities (cont.)

Perception of Patterns and Forms in Infancy

Early pattern perception (0 to 2 months) Prefer to look at whatever they can see well

Later form perception (2 months to 1 year) Can use object movement to perceive form

Explaining form perception Growth of form perception results from a continuous

interplay among baby's inborn equipment, biological maturation, and visual experiences.

Perception of Three-Dimensional Space in Infancy

Size constancy Recognizing that an object remains the same size even

when its image on the retina becomes larger as the object moves closer, or smaller as the object moves farther away

Binocular vision enhances this capability. Binocular vision emerges around 3 to 5 months of age.

Use of pictorial cues 7-month-olds seem able to use pictorial cues, while 5-

month-olds cannot.

Perception of Three-Dimensional Space in Infancy (cont.)

Development of depth perception Visual cliff experiment

Infants detect a difference between the deep and shallow sides.

Motor development and depth perception Self-produced movement helps develop depth perception.

Visual Cliff

Visual cliff:

Perception of Three-Dimensional Space in Infancy (cont.)

Intermodal Perception

The senses are integrated at birth or shortly thereafter. Development of intermodal perception improves dramatically

over the first year of life. Explaining intermodal perception is difficult, but seems

consistent with the differentiation theory.

Infant Perception in Perspective—and a Look Ahead

Perceptual learning in childhood: Gibson’s differentiation theory Perceptual learning occurs when we actively explore and

detect distinctive features. Cultural influences on perception

Subtle, but important effects Newborns are equipped to perceive "musicality" and to

discriminate good music from bad music. Humans learn not to hear certain phonemes if they are

not distinctive to the language spoken.

Infant Perception in Perspective—and a Look Ahead (cont.)

Figure 6.14 Examples of figures used to test children’s ability to detect the distinctive features of letterlikeforms. Stimulus 1 is the standard. The child’s task is to examine each of the comparison stimuli(stimuli 2–7) and pick out those that are the same as the standard. Adapted fromGibson et al.,1962.

Basic Learning Processes

Individual now thinks, perceives, or reacts to the environment in a new way

Result of a person's experiences Change is relatively permanent.

Habituation: Early Evidence of Information-Processing and Memory

Process by which we stop attending or responding to a stimulus repeated over and over

Improves dramatically throughout the first year of life Individual differences

Infants who habituate rapidly during the first six to eight months of life are quicker to understand and use language during the second year of life.

Classical Conditioning

A neutral stimulus that initially has no effect on the child eventually elicits a response of some sort, because it is associated with a second stimulus that always elicits the response.

Classical conditioning of emotions Little Albert

UCS — loud banging noise UCR — fearful behavior CS — rat CR— fearful behavior

Even newborns can be classically conditioned.

Classical Conditioning (cont.)

Figure 6.15 The three phases of classical conditioning. In the preconditioning phase, theunconditioned stimulus (UCS)always elicits an unconditioned response (UCR), whereas theconditioned stimulus (CS) neverdoes. During the conditioningphase, the CS and UCS arepaired repeatedly and eventuallyassociated. At this point, thelearner passes into thepostconditioning phase, in whichthe CS alone elicits the originalresponse (now called aconditioned response, or CR)

Operant (or Instrumental) Conditioning

Four possible consequences of operant responses Positive reinforcement: Something pleasant is added to

increase response. Negative reinforcement: Something unpleasant is removed

to increase response. Positive punishment: Something unpleasant is added to

decrease response. Negative punishment: Something pleasant is removed to

decrease response. Operant conditioning in infancy is at best limited in early

infancy. Infants can remember what they have learned. The social significance of early operant learning is evident in

infants and their caregivers.

Operant (or Instrumental) Conditioning (cont.)

Figure 6.16 Basic principles of operant conditioning

Operant (or Instrumental) Conditioning (cont.)

Observational Learning

Newborn imitation can be observed for facial expressions. Advances in imitation and observational learning become

obvious around 8 to 12 months of age. Grade school children are capable of verbally describing

model's behavior, and are better at imitating the model.