Deck 6: Assessing Motor Development and Motor Skill Performance

Question 1

How are direct perception and constructivist theories related to nativist and empiricist philosophical perspectives regarding perceptual development?

Answer 1

Although direct perception theories are more closely related to empiricist perspectives and constructivist more related to nativist perspectives, both represent more nuanced understandings of the sources of perceptual development grounded in empirical as well as practical considerations of the functions of perceptual experience in development

Question 2

According to Bornstein, Arterberry, and Mash, what is the difference between developmental continuity and developmental stability as central metrics in the study of perception?

Answer 2

Continuity and stability represent two central constructs in developmental science, and describe related, but conceptually and statistically independent, dimensions of development. Developmental stability is present when individual differences among children are maintained over time; instability is present when individual differences among children change over time.
Developmental discontinuity in perception is present when typical (or average) age-group performance shows improvement or impairment over time.

Question 3

How do conclusions regarding infant perceptual development suggest a central role of adaptation?

Answer 3

Young infants start life with sensory and perceptual abilities that are refined as they grow older through further maturation, the development of complementary systems (such as motor skills), and experience. Infants' "stripped-down" perceptual abilities appear to be useful for their developmental stage and they adapt these abilities to take advantage of information in the environment

Question 4

Which of the following research methods should be considered the strongest in the inferences it permits about perceptual development?

A) Use of conditioned head rotation in the study of auditory discrimination
B) Comparisons of brain anatomy of infants and children
C) Measurement of single-cell activity in the sensory cortex of adolescents
D) Observations of changes in infant heart rate during the presentation of a novel event

Question 5

Which of the following lists represents the correct sequence (from earliest to latest) of the functional development of the five senses during prenatal development?

A) Touch, taste, smell, hearing, vision
B) Taste, smell, touch, vision, hearing
C) Smell, touch, taste, hearing, vision
D) Touch, hearing, smell, taste, vision

Question 6

At which of the following ages does synaptic "pruning" peak in humans?

A) 1 year, 11 years
B) Birth, 12 years
C) 7 years, 20 years
D) 7 years, 13 years

Question 7

Research on the development of taste perception in infants has shown that newborns:

A) Exhibit differential reactions to different tastes
B) Prefer bland tastes to strong tastes
C) Learn to pair certain tastes with specific facial expressions
D) Process taste discrimination in the sensory cortex

Question 8

Compared with bottle-fed infants, breast-fed newborns are more likely to orient preferentially and exclusively to the _____ of their own mother:

A) Smell
B) Voice
C) Face
D) Smile

Question 9

Which of the following statements concerning color perception in human infants has been supported empirically (i.e., is true)?

A) By 3 months, infants possess basically normal color vision
B) Infants are born without the ability to discriminate colors
C) Newborns have blue-green color blindness that typically disappears by 6 months
D) Infants prefer red and yellow hues over blue and green hues

Question 10

Adult levels of visual acuity typically appear in human infants at _____ months of age:

A) 8
B) 2
C) 3
D) 6

Question 11

Infants reliably perceive depth at 1 month of age using stimulus information provided by _____:

A) Kinetic cues
B) Binocular convergence
C) Static-monocular cues
D) The relative size of objects

Question 12

The study of perceptual development in children is motivated more by _____ than _____ concerns:

A) Practical; philosophical
B) Methodological; theoretical
C) Linguistic; sensory
D) Social; emotional

Question 13

Which of the following senses shows the least amount of deterioration in later life?

A) Taste
B) Smell
C) Touch
D) Vision

Question 14

Which of the following perceptual abilities exhibits continuity, rather than discontinuity, over the life span?

A) Configural, rather than featural, face perception
B) Perception of gender differences in faces
C) Recognition of individual faces as familiar
D) Interpretation of emotion states from facial cues

Question 15

What role does inference play in the investigation of perceptual development? Please include examples of research methods that represent the continuum, from low to high, of levels of inference each provides.

Question 16

Describe how empirical studies using habituation-recovery provide clear and reliable data about infant perceptual development. Please provide examples of studies using this methodology with two different sensory modalities.

Question 17

Summarize the evidence presented by Bornstein, Arterberry, and Mash that perceptual development can be considered to be "experience-dependent" over the life-span.