Infancy Learning Capacities & Perceptual Development “The infant’s world is a great blooming, buzzing confusion.” ~ William James

How do infants learn? 1. Classical conditioning: Relies on reflexes - Related to survival value of the UCS-CS

How do infants learn? 2. Operant conditioning: Spontaneous behavior followed by stimulus changes the likelihood of it reoccurring –Reinforcer: positive stimulus –Punishment: negative stimulus

Rovee-Collier research

How do infants learn? 3. Habituation: reduction in response strength due to repetitive stimulation –Recovery: heightened response rate upon novel stimuli Habituation : shown picture until no longer interested (e.g., look away) Recovery: old & novel picture & assess response (e.g., look at novel picture) (e.g., look at novel picture) Learned Did not Learn

How do infants learn? 4. Imitation: learning by copying another person –Limited ability in young infants –Starting point for operant conditioning Which learning capacity matters most?

Perceptual Development Which pattern do infants prefer to look at? It depends on which contrast they can perceive < 3 weeks > 6 weeks

1. Pattern perception Infants prefer patterned over plain stimuli Infants prefer patterned over plain stimuli Contrast sensitivity – if pattern detectable, prefer stimuli with more Contrast sensitivity – if pattern detectable, prefer stimuli with more Methods Methods –Habituation-recovery technique Visual Development

1. Pattern perception Infants prefer patterned over plain stimuli Infants prefer patterned over plain stimuli Contrast sensitivity – if pattern detectable, prefer stimuli with more Contrast sensitivity – if pattern detectable, prefer stimuli with more Methods Methods –Habituation-recovery technique –Visual scanning – track eye movements Visual Development

What do infants perceive on the human face?

Visual Development 2. Depth perception Judge distance of objects from one another & ourselves Judge distance of objects from one another & ourselves Why is depth perception important? Why is depth perception important? –**Allows for reaching & grasping accurately (3 mo)** –Related to safer crawling (6 mo) Methods: visual cliff (Gibson & Walk, 1960) Methods: visual cliff (Gibson & Walk, 1960)

Visual cliff

Results: % of infants that cross the cliff Time crawling & likelihood to cross cliff r =.54 Nature & nurture influence depth perception!

Preparation for In-class Activity 3 Find a reputable toy website (e.g., Fisher Price, Leap Frog, Baby Einstein, etc.) and visit the section featuring toys for infants. Identify one of the top selling toys and bring information (i.e., name, picture, website, etc.) in for the next class period.