Developmental Psychology

The stages ...

Infancy - Childhood

Adolescence

Adulthood – young, middle, late stages

Heredity vs. Environment Debate

Think: What traits do you share with your parents?

Where do these traits come from?

There is the tabula rasa/environment view and the maturation and heredity view. Both must be taken into account.

Consider the following:Learning to -crawl and walk-talk-read-take turns

Nature vs. Nurture...

If a 10 year old steals a car, should his mom and dad be legally responsible? Debate...

Watch http://www.5min.com/Video/The-Nature-vs-Nurture-Argument-175265999

Stage Development vs. Continuous Development

What makes more sense to you?

Infant Development

Interesting Fact:On average, babies in Uganda walk after

about 10 months.Babies in Canada walk after one year.

Infant Development

Voluntary and Involuntary Responses of Infants

Baby reflexes: grasping, breathing, sneezing, blinking, rooting, eliminating... These types of reflexive responses change with maturation...

Moro (startle) reflex:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhOleckx1-

Y&NR=1Babinski Reflex: http

://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqbaGL_hWTM

Motor Development

2 types – gross motor development and fine motor development

These gross movements come from large muscle groups and whole body movement.

Fine motor skills are skills that involve a refined use of the small muscles controlling the hand, fingers, and thumb.

Perceptual Development

Newborn visual acuity is 20/400 to 20/800 20/200 or worse defines legal blindness in adults

Newborn visual acuity is 20/400 to 20/800 20/200 or worse defines legal blindness in adults

By 6 months, infant visual acuity is 20/25

By 1 year, infant visual acuity is at adult levels (20/20)

20/20 ?? – The Snellen Chart

Vision Testing"Normal" vision is 20/20. This means that the test subject sees the same line of letters at 20 feet that a normal person sees at 20 feet. 20/40 vision means that the test subject see as 20 feet what a normal person sees at 40 feet. 20/15 vision is better than 20/20. A person with 20/15 vision can see objects at 20 feet that a person with 20/20 vision can only see at 15 feet.

Levels of Vision 20/20 - Normal vision. Fighter pilot minimum. Required to read the

stock quotes in the newspaper, or numbers in the telephone book.

20/40 - Able to pass Driver's License Test in all 50 States. Most printed material is at this level.

20/200 - Legal blindness. Able to see STOP sign letters.

Baby Vision!!

Eye Development

• The improvements in contrast sensitivity is due to the elongation and tighter packing of cones in the retina and is associated with development of the visual cortex

Face #1

Face #2

Face #3

Perceptual Development

Newborns know about (and prefer to look at) facesIn experiments, newborn infants have shown a preference for looking at faces (after prolonged human contact post 15 weeks) (e.g., Batki et al 2000). The babies are pretty discriminating, too. For example, they show a preference for faces with open eyes. And, given a choice between fearful and smiling faces, newborns look longer at happy faces (Farroni et al 2007).

Which face what a baby prefer?

The Visual Cliff

http://vimeo.com/77934 By the time infants learn to crawl, they will

typically avoid crossing over the glass portion!

P277 & 282 readings and questions!