| Chapter 4 Three early forms of learning: Classical conditioning: recognize which events co-occur => make predictions Operant conditioning: based on consequences => learn what is expected in society Observational learning: watch others and imitate the behaviors that were reinforced Methods to study cognitive and perceptual abilities: Habituation-dishabituation paradigm Based on natural tendency of brain to be attracted to novelty Perceptual abilities: Hearing: by 6 months, screen out sounds not useful in language spoken around kids Vision Depth perception: don't cross visual cliff when kids have crawling experience Perceptual organization: impose meaning on the world based on experiences Contrast sensitivity: detection of fine-grained details improves Intermodal perception and integration: acquired quickly, probably through classical conditioning Motor development: As long as there is no negative environmental influences, the sequence of motor development is fairly uniform across all children and follows a genetically determined path. There are large differences in rate of progress though, mainly due to brain development, cultural differences, and practice |
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