Deck 11: Developmental Social Neuroscience

Question 1

According to Gardner & Steinberg (2005) what are the characteristics of risk-taking in adolescence?

A) Risk-taking is higher overall but uninfluenced by the presence of peers.
B) Risk-taking is strongly decreased by the presence of peers.
C) Risk-taking is strongly increased by the presence of peers.
D) Risk taking is lower than in adults.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

What is the size of the newborn human brain relative to that of an adult?

A) 450g:1400g
B) 450g:900g
C) 900g:1400g
D) 450g:700g

Answer 2

A

Question 3

What measure was typically used in the influential studies of newborn voice preference in the 1970s and 1980s?

A) Head orienting
B) Sucking rate
C) Startle response
D) Gaze duration

Answer 3

B

Question 4

What were the conclusions of the study of early altruism by Warneken & Tomasello (2008)?

A) Giving rewards for helping increases future helping behavior.
B) Giving rewards for helping reduces future helping behavior.
C) Children will only help if they expect an external reward.
D) Children will only help people who are likely to return the help to them.

Question 5

What were the findings of the ERP study of infant gaze detection by Johnson et al. (2005)?

A) Infants are able to use the STS region for gaze detection.
B) Infants tend to use occipital and frontal regions for gaze detection.
C) The fusiform face area supports gaze detection in infancy.
D) Gaze detection in infancy is very similar, in neural terms, to that found in adults.

Question 6

What were the findings of the joint attention study of Brooks & Meltzoff (2005)?

A) Infants under 10 months will follow head turns only if the eyes are also open.
B) Infants under 10 months will follow head turns both if the eyes are open or closed.
C) Infants under 10 months will point to a novel object that the experimenter cannot see.
D) Infants under 10 months don't engage in joint attention.

Question 7

What were the general conclusions of the fMRI studies of 'mentalizing' during adolescence of Wang et al. (2006) and Blakemore et al. (2007)?

A) Different 'theory of mind' networks support mentalizing in adolescence and adulthood.
B) The same 'theory of mind' network was activated in both adolescents and adults but the relative level of activity in different regions varied between the groups.
C) Adolescents rely more on domain-specific 'theory of mind' processes.
D) The same 'theory of mind' network was activated in both adolescents and adults but adolescents activated it more.

Question 8

Which of the following environmental factors affects the age at which children typically pass (explicit) theory-of-mind tasks?

A) Urban versus rural location
B) Collectivist versus individualist culture
C) Temperature
D) Presence of siblings

Question 9

Which of the following statements about human brain development is true?

A) The infant brain has considerably more neurons than the adult brain.
B) The infant brain has considerably more myelin than the adult brain.
C) The infant brain has considerably more gray matter than the adult brain,
D) The infant brain has considerably greater synaptic density than the adult brain.

Question 10

Which of the following statements about the development of the prefrontal cortex during adolescence is true?

A) White-matter density decreases linearly to adult levels during adolescence.
B) White-matter density peaks around puberty then decreases during adolescence to adult levels.
C) Grey-matter density increases linearly to adult levels during adolescence.
D) Grey-matter density peaks around puberty then decreases during adolescence to adult levels.

Question 11

Which of the following statements concerning infant-directed speech or 'motherese' is true?

A) Young children with autism show a normal preference and EEG response to it.
B) It is associated with higher pitch and normal variability in pitch.
C) The characteristics vary greatly across cultures.
D) Infants show larger ERP amplitudes in attention-related components to motherese relative to normal speech.

Question 12

Who conducted an influential study of emotional contagion (crying) in infants?

A) Johnson et al. (1991)
B) Meltzoff & Moore (1977)
C) Simner (1971)
D) Garnica (1977)

Question 13

Who conducted influential studies on newborn facial mimickry?

A) Kuhl
B) Simner
C) Meltzoff & Moore
D) Perner & Ruffman

Question 14

Who has argued that language learning is gated by the social brain?

A) Simner
B) Meltzoff & Moore
C) Kuhl
D) Perner & Ruffman

Question 15

What do Cook et al. (2014) suggest is responsible for the development of mirror neurons?

A) The in-utero environment
B) Theory-of-mind
C) A mature premotor cortex
D) Associative learning

Question 16

What did the functional imaging study of infant face processing by Tzuorio-Mazoyer et al. (2002) show?

A) Infants activate regions within the 'core' system of face processing and little else.
B) Infants viewing faces activate regions that, in adults, tend to be more specialized for language in addition to activating regions within the 'core' system of face processing.
C) Infants show a highly distributed pattern of activity across the whole brain.
D) Infants viewing faces activate regions that, in adults, tend to be more specialized for language but do not show activity in regions within the 'core' system of face processing.

Question 17

According to the study of Macchi-Cassia et al. (2004) which statement about newborn face recognition is true?

A) Newborns do not show a preference for real over jumbled faces.
B) Newborns do not show a preference for upright over inverted faces.
C) Newborns do not show a preference for real faces over top-heavy jumbled faces.
D) Newborns do not show a preference for top-heavy jumbled faces over bottom-heavy jumbled faces.

Question 18

According to the study of Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) at what age do infants/children have an (implicit) understanding of false belief?

A) 15 months
B) 10 months
C) 2 years
D) 3 years

Question 19

According to the theory of Ernst, Pine, & Hardin (2006) what are the effects of structural changes in the adolescent brain on motivational mechanisms?

A) A dominance of reward-related over punishment-related motivations
B) A dominance of punishment-related over reward-related motivations
C) A dominance of cognitive control mechanisms over emotional processing
D) A dominance of social motivations over non-social motivations

Question 20

At what age do children typically pass the mark test (i.e. rubbing an unknown mark off their body after discovering it in a mirror)?

A) 24 months
B) 18 months
C) 12 months
D) 36 months

Question 21

Fabes et al. (1994) measured heart rate increases and effective comforting behaviour in children in response to a crying infant. What were their findings?

A) Children with small changes in heart rate engaged in more comforting behaviour.
B) Children with large changes in heart rate engaged in more comforting behaviour.
C) Signs of personal distress were linked to increases in altruistic behaviour.
D) There was no link between heart rate and comforting behaviour.

Question 22

In biology, the term 'instinct' is normally taken to refer to what?

A) A behavior that has been acquired from natural selection
B) A behavior that is present from birth
C) A behavior that is unconscious
D) A behaviour that depends on the environment

Question 23

In the study of Dumontheil et al. (2010) what was the explanation given for why older adolescents don't perform as well as adults on a hard theory-of-mind task?

A) The ability to represent false beliefs does not fully mature until this time.
B) Adolescents focus too much on the rewards.
C) Adolescents engage in more daydreaming.
D) Executive functions do not fully mature until this time.

Question 24

In the study of Lewis & Carmody (2008) the structural development (measured with MRI) of which region of the brain was linked to ability in self-representation including full mirror self-recognition?

A) Temporo-parietal junction
B) Amygdala
C) Anterior cingulate cortex
D) Medial pre-frontal cortex

Question 25

Tasks showing that children under 4 years old can understand false beliefs (e.g. Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005) have relied on which measure?

A) Verbal responses
B) Skin conductance responses
C) EEG recordings
D) Looking times

Question 26

The inability to recollect the earliest years of our lives (childhood amnesia) covers which period, approximately?

A) 0-3.5 years
B) 0-1.5 years
C) 0-2.5 years
D) 0-4.5 years

Question 27

The study of Grossman et al. (2010) used near infrared spectroscopy to study voice processing in the superior temporal sulcus of infants. What did the study find?

A) Functional specialization to voices emerges in this region at around 1 month.
B) Functional specialization to voices emerges in this region at around 7 months.
C) Functional specialization to voices appears to be present at birth.
D) Functional specialization to voices emerges in childhood and is not present during infancy.

Question 28

The study of mu suppression by Southgate et al. (2010) found that infants at what age showed an EEG difference between observing meaningful versus meaningless actions?

A) 9 months
B) 18 months
C) 1 month
D) 24 months

Question 29

Why is near-infrared spectroscopy becoming a popular method in developmental social neuroscience?

A) It is better adapted for smaller heads.
B) It can accommodate movements from the infant/child and they can sit upright on a parents lap.
C) It has a better spatial resolution than fMRI.
D) It is a direct measure of neural activity.