Deck 5: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Question 1

Based on what we know about Piaget's sensorimotor substages, in which substage would an infant be capable of deferred imitation?

A) Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions
B) Substage 2: Primary Circular Reactions
C) Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions
D) Substage 6: Mental Representations

Answer 1

Substage 6: Mental Representations

Question 2

The understanding that objects continue to exist outside of sensory awareness is called:

A) habituation.
B) mental representation.
C) tertiary circular reaction.
D) object permanence.

Answer 2

object permanence.

Question 3

In the first month of life, infants use reflexes to learn about their world through the process of:

A) mental representation.
B) equilibrium.
C) assimilation.
D) accommodation.

Answer 3

assimilation.

Question 4

Abigail has a puppy. She loves to hold the puppy in her lap and pet it. She visits her grandma's house. Her grandma has bird. The bird does not like to be held or it will bite. Abigail at first tries to grab the bird to hold it and it nips her finger. She learns that she must just pet the bird when it is in the cage. What cognitive process did Abigail need to use?

A) Accommodation
B) Assimilation
C) Disequilibrium
D) Modification

Question 5

A concept, idea, and way of interacting on the world is called a(an):

A) equilibrium.
B) accommodation.
C) assimilation.
D) schema.

Question 6

Which sensorimotor substage involves patterns of repetition with objects and is more oriented to the infant's environment?

A) Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions
B) Substage 2: Primary Circular Reactions
C) Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions
D) Substage 6: Mental Representations

Question 7

Bailey is an infant boy who is sitting in his car seat. He is waving his hands around and his thumb accidentally touches his cheek. He turns his head toward his thumb and he puts his thumb into his mouth. He begins to suck on it and finds that he likes it. He quickly learns to put his thumb into his mouth and suck on it whenever he wants to. What sensorimotor substage does this illustrate?

A) Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions
B) Substage 2: Primary Circular Reactions
C) Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions
D) Substage 6: Mental Representations

Question 8

How did Piaget believe infants think about an object?

A) Piaget believed that infants must experience an object through both the visual and tactile senses.
B) Piaget believed that infants think about objects through mental representation.
C) Piaget believed that infants have a set of innate knowledge to begin their cognitive development.
D) Piaget believed that infants simply need to hear information to learn.

Question 9

What do infants' motor schemas transform into as they develop cognitively?

A) Cognitive schemas or thoughts
B) Motor skills
C) Memories
D) Assimilations

Question 10

What other area of development is influenced by an infant's ability to understand object permanence?

A) The ability to control emotional outbursts.
B) The ability to advance fine motor skills.
C) The ability to learn language.
D) The ability to advance gross motor skills.

Question 11

Which of the following illustrates secondary circular reactions?

A) Alexis wants her sippy cup that is on top of the table but she can't reach it, so she pulls a stool over to the table and steps up on it to get her cup.
B) Jason sucks his thumb.
C) Brianna drops a ball and watches it bounce down the stairs.
D) Michael kicks his legs while lying in his crib to make a mobile move.

Question 12

Trevor is an infant who is happily playing with a toy train. His father picks him up for his nap. Trevor fusses because he wants his train. His father takes the train and puts it under the blanket on the floor. Trevor doesn't look for the train and lets his father take him to his room to nap. According to Piaget, what cognitive concept is Trevor not yet capable of?

A) Habituation
B) Dishabituation
C) Object permanence
D) Accommodation

Question 13

Which of the following is not an example of an individual's earliest schemas?

A) Baby Katy plays peekaboo with her mother.
B) Baby Katy sucks on her bottle and drinks when it is put in her mouth.
C) Baby Katy moves her arms and legs as if swimming when put in water.
D) Baby Katy sneezes when she gets dust in her nose.

Question 14

How does disequilibrium lead to cognitive growth?

A) Disequilibrium has nothing to do with cognitive growth; instead, it is involved in synaptic pruning.
B) Disequilibrium causes individuals to experience an increase in REM sleep, thereby increasing their cognitive abilities.
C) Disequilibrium causes an eruption in synaptic growth in the brain, thereby enhancing cognitive growth.
D) Individuals experience a mismatch between existing schemas and reality, which is confusing, so they are motivated to modify their cognitive schemas to match reality.

Question 15

Rebecca was very distracted by her toy bunny when her mother was trying to get her dressed in the morning, so her mother took the bunny and put it behind the couch pillow. Rebecca crawled over to the couch and moved the pillow to get the bunny. According to Piaget, what cognitive advance has Rebecca developed?

A) Object permanence
B) Dishabituation
C) Accommodation
D) Primary circular reaction

Question 16

In which sensorimotor substage are infants capable of deferred imitation?

A) Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions
B) Substage 2: Primary Circular Reactions
C) Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions
D) Substage 6: Mental Representations

Question 17

What propels a child to move through the four stages of cognitive development proposed by Piaget?

A) The drive for cognitive disequilibrium.
B) The experience of cognitive assimilation.
C) The drive for cognitive equilibrium.
D) The experience of cognitive accommodation.

Question 18

According to Piaget, at what age does an infant develop object permanence?

A) 3 to 6 months.
B) 8 to 12 months.
C) 15 to 18 months.
D) 4 to 8 months.

Question 19

What concept corresponds with goal-directed behavior?

A) Object permanence
B) Dishabituation
C) Accommodation
D) Primary circular reaction

Question 20

Which of the following would be considered the earliest schema a newborn has?

A) His or her mother's voice.
B) Inborn motor responses.
C) The ability to see.
D) The memory of the birth process.

Question 21

What part of the information processing system is considered to be a control processor that directs the flow of information and regulates cognitive activities such as attention, action, and problem solving?

A) Sensory memory
B) Sensory regulator
C) The central executive
D) Core processor

Question 22

What other theoretical viewpoint is consistent with beliefs of core knowledge theorists?

A) Behaviorism
B) Social ecological theory
C) Psychoanalytic theory
D) Evolutionary theory

Question 23

Which of the following statements is consistent with the core knowledge perspective?

A) Infants learn best through experience with more skilled individuals.
B) Infant learning begins with reflexive behaviors.
C) Infants are born with several innate knowledge systems that enable early rapid learning.
D) At birth, infants are capable of mental representation.

Question 24

Which of the following is not a factor that improves an infant's ability to recall events?

A) Active engagement
B) Events that take place in familiar surroundings
C) Events that involve other infants or peers
D) Events that are emotionally salient

Question 25

In the information processing system, the first step in getting information into the mind is:

A) working memory.
B) sensory memory.
C) long-term memory.
D) short-term memory.

Question 26

Which part of the information processing system is an unlimited store that holds information indefinitely?

A) Sensory memory
B) Working memory
C) Long-term memory
D) Short-term memory

Question 27

Mary is a newborn that has been observed looking longer at a ball that bumps into another ball which then rolls onto the floor than she does at a ball bumping into another ball that doesn't move. Which type of theorist would be very interested in this observation?

A) A behaviorist
B) A core knowledge theorist
C) An ecologist
D) A psychoanalyst

Question 28

Which statement is true regarding attention and memory in infancy?

A) Infants show more attentiveness to static than dynamic stimuli because they have difficulty focusing on dynamic stimuli.
B) Infants show more attentiveness to dynamic than static stimuli.
C) Infant attentiveness is not directly associated with cognition.
D) Infants are born with memory skills equal to adults.

Question 29

Abigail is an infant that crawls over to a box of toys that has 10 items and ignores the box of toys that only has five items. What would a core knowledge theorist conclude?

A) Abigail has early knowledge of numbers.
B) Abigail is experiencing violation-of-expectation.
C) Abigail is capable of tertiary circular reactions.
D) Abigail is capable of mental representation.

Question 30

Working memory is responsible for all of the following actions except:

A) storing information.
B) manipulating information.
C) encoding information.
D) retrieving information.

Question 31

What is the name of the experimental task in which an infant interacts with an adult who first engages in normal social interaction and then suddenly becomes unresponsive?

A) The still-face interaction paradigm
B) Violation-of-expectation task
C) Visual cliff
D) A-not-B error

Question 32

Which of the following statements is not consistent with the information processing system view?

A) Information is manipulated or processed in long-term memory.
B) The structure of the information processing system is the same throughout the lifespan.
C) With development, we get better at moving information through our cognitive system in ways that allow us to adapt to our world.
D) As we age, we can process more information, retain more information, and do so more quickly and efficiently.

Question 33

What is critical for selecting information to process in working memory?

A) The ability to emotionally connect to the information.
B) The ability to focus and switch attention.
C) Repeating information.
D) Good eye-hand coordination.

Question 34

Recent research on the A-not-B error suggests that the reason 10-month-olds fail to recover the hidden toy is not because they lack object permanence but instead:

A)They have immature visual systems.
B) They have an immature motor system.
C) They lack logical thinking.
D) They lack symbolic thinking.

Question 35

What cognitive skill results in an infant's ability to attend to and learn from television and video?

A) The information processing skill of attention.
B) The ability to dishabituate from stimuli.
C) The acquisition of object permanence.
D) The understanding of violation-of-expectation.

Question 36

What type of studies would a researcher employ to gather information about infant memory?

A) Preferential looking studies
B) Accommodation studies
C) Habituation studies
D) Reflex studies

Question 37

Carter is an infant who enjoys playing patty-cake with his mother. Carter doesn't do the hand motions to patty-cake all the time, but when his mother sits down in front of him and puts her hands together, he starts doing the hand motions. Where is Carter's knowledge of the hand motions to patty-cake stored?

A) They are stored in sensory memory.
B) They are stored in working memory.
C) They are stored in central memory.
D) They are stored in long-term memory.

Question 38

What research technique is used by most core knowledge researchers?

A) Visual preferences
B) Conservation tasks
C) Bayley Scales of Infant Development
D) Naturalistic observation

Question 39

How do researchers typically study infant attention?

A) They use assimilation and accommodation procedures.
B) They use preferential looking procedures and habituation procedures.
C) They use social referencing procedures.
D) They use direct and indirect response procedures.

Question 40

Maddie watches her mother hide her favorite toy behind the couch. After she gets down from her high chair after lunch, she crawls over to the couch and gets her toy. What part of memory is Maddie using?

A) Sensory memory
B) Working memory
C) Long-term memory
D) Central memory

Question 41

How do infants who are considered to be quick learners perform on habituation tasks?

A) Infants who learn quickly look away from an unchanging stimulus more quickly.
B) Infants who learn quickly stare at an unchanging stimulus longer.
C) Infants who learn quickly look away from a stimulus that changes frequently more quickly.
D) Infants who learn quickly prefer stimuli they have seen more often over new stimuli.

Question 42

Which of the following is not a characteristic of infant-directed speech?

A) The use of shorter words and sentences.
B) The use of nonsense sounds mimicking the baby's sounds.
C) Higher and more varied pitch.
D) The use of repetitions, speaking at a slower rate, and longer pauses.

Question 43

Which of the following is an example of telegraphic speech?

A) Down!
B) Daddy home.
C) Ba-ba-ba-ba.
D) Ohhhhhhhhh.

Question 44

The process of quickly acquiring and retaining a word after hearing it applied a few times is called:

A) word integration.
B) fast mapping.
C) holophrasing.
D) categorization.

Question 45

Which of the perspectives on language acquisition discusses how culture shapes language acquisition?

A) Interactionist perspective
B) Nativist perspective
C) Learning theory
D) Ethological theory

Question 46

Grace drops her cup of milk on the floor and looks at her mother while saying, "MILK!" What is Grace expressing in terms of her language ability?

A) Grace is labeling her milk.
B) Grace is fast mapping the word for milk.
C) Grace is babbling, but it just sounds like the word milk.
D) Grace is using a holophrase that actually means, "Mom, I spilled my milk on the floor!"

Question 47

Grouping different stimuli from a common class is called:

A) categorization.
B) organization.
C) serialization.
D) identification.

Question 48

Kenzie's mother is being asked to report on Kenzie's ability to communicate, regulate her emotions, and display certain behaviors. Why is she being asked to report on these things?

A) Because Kenzie is being assessed on a test of information processing.
B) Because Kenzie is being assessed on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development III and her mother is filling out the adaptive behavior scale.
C) Because Kenzie is being assessed on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development III language scale.
D) Because Kenzie is being assessed on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children to see if she is ready for preschool.

Question 49

How is categorization related to information processing?

A) Children are attuned to sensing differences in objects (sensory memory).
B) Recognizing categories makes more room in working memory.
C) Recognizing categories is not related to information processing in any specific way.
D) Recognizing categories is a way of organizing information that allows for more efficient storage and retrieval of information in memory.

Question 50

John is a child who visited his grandma's house when he was a toddler. He went on a typical summer weekend with his parents. Casey is a child who visited her grandma's house when she was a toddler. She got to pick out a puppy from a litter her grandma's dog had. Which of the children will remember the visit to grandma's house?

A) John, because the visit was to his grandma's house and he was with his parents.
B) Casey, because she was familiar and comfortable at her grandma's house and she was very excited to be getting a puppy so there was emotional engagement in the visit.
C) John, because the visit was to a familiar place.
D) John and Casey will be equally likely to remember the visit.

Question 51

Which of the following statements is true regarding children's ability to learn words?

A) A toddler may increase his or her vocabulary from 50 words to over 400 words within a couple of weeks.
B) Children tend to start out using overextension and then progress to using underextension more often.
C) Word acquisition tends to happen in sudden spurts for most children.
D) Children's vocabulary spurt occurs around the age of 4 when they are typically in a formal education setting.

Question 52

Dr. Cary is interested in studying an infant's ability to categorize. What technique should she choose in order to gather the information she needs?

A) Dr. Cary should use social referencing to gather information on categorization.
B) Dr. Cary should interview the infants' parents on their ability to categorize.
C) Dr. Cary should give infants an infant IQ test.
D) Dr. Cary should conduct a study using habituation in infants.

Question 53

How do pediatricians accurately determine infants' development relative to other infants their age?

A) Through standardized tests.
B) Through parental report.
C) By observing the infants.
D) Through reports from child care providers, parents, and observations.

Question 54

Jonah is a 6-month-old baby who says ma-ma-ma-ma all the time. What can we conclude about Jonah's language ability?

A) Jonah is an early developing infant and is saying ma-ma-ma-ma in reference to his mother.
B) Jonah is babbling and the sounds he makes are consistent with his native language only.
C) Jonah is babbling and making sounds like any other infant in the world without actually referring to his mother.
D) Jonah is demonstrating a holophrase for the word mama.

Question 55

Joanne is an infant who is taking the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. She is asked to drink from a cup, is observed sitting in an upright position, and asked to climb stairs. Which of the scales is she being assessed on?

A) The motor scale.
B) The cognitive scale.
C) The social-emotional scale.
D) The language scale.

Question 56

Why is the information processing approach to measuring infant intelligence predictive of later intellectual ability?

A) Because the information processing approach is an excellent measure of neurological health.
B) Because attention, memory, speed of thinking, and cognitive adaptability are competencies that permit individuals to make sense of and adapt to their world.
C) Because perception and motor skills, responsiveness, and language skills are competencies that form the foundation for later intelligence.
D) Because the information processing approach incorporates both cognitive and socioemotional measures of infant ability.

Question 57

Which of the following words is an example of underextension?

A) Ben only calls his Daddy's coffee mug a cup and doesn't call any other type of drinking glass a cup.
B) Ben calls all farm animals cows.
C) Ben calls every kind of ball a basketball.
D) Ben calls all men he sees "Daddy."

Question 58

Jennifer is an infant who has begun to put all the spoons in a pile and all the forks in a pile when her mother is doing dishes. She also will put the toy cars together and the stuffed animals together in boxes in her playroom. Based on what we know about categorization in infants, how old is Jennifer?

A) Jennifer is most likely 7 to 12 months old.
B) Jennifer is most likely just turning 15 months old.
C) Jennifer is most likely 3 to 6 months old.
D) Jennifer is 2 years old.

Question 59

What technique used to study infant categorization involves a researcher recording an infant's patterns of touching when shown objects?

A) Dishabituation
B) Sequential touching
C) Intermodal perception
D) Preferential looking

Question 60

The most often used standardized measure of infant intelligence is:

A) The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised.
B) The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scales of Development.
C) The Bayley Scales of Infant Development III (BSID-III).
D) The Stanford-Binet.

Question 61

Object permanence is a cognitive skill that does not develop until a child is able to walk independently.

Question 62

Infants naturally categorize or organize information, just as older children and adults do.

Question 63

Much core knowledge research employs looking paradigms, in which infants' visual preferences are measured as indicators of what they know.

Question 64

Which perspective on language development accounts for children's unique utterances and the unusual grammatical mistakes they make in speaking?

A) The nativist perspective.
B) The learning perspective.
C) The interactionist perspective.
D) The universal perspective.

Question 65

According to the core knowledge perspective, infants are thought to have early knowledge of numbers.

Question 66

Individuals spend the majority of time in a state of cognitive equilibrium and only experience disequilibrium when they are learning something new.

Question 67

Carrie's mother gives her a big smile and says "good job" every time Carrie says "thank you." Which perspective on language development is this an example of?

A) The nativist perspective.
B) The learning perspective.
C) The interactionist perspective.
D) The universal perspective.

Question 68

Children do not show gains in attention until they are around the age of 12 months.

Question 69

Infants prefer to look at number changes over area changes, which is consistent with the core knowledge perspective views of infant cognitive development.

Question 70

Core knowledge is a concept that occurs during Piaget's sensorimotor substage of tertiary circular reactions.

Question 71

Infants tend to categorize less inclusive levels (e.g., types of animals) before they categorize at more inclusive levels (e.g., animals).

Question 72

Danny had a head injury that resulted in his inability to speak fluently. He would mix up words in a sentence, so instead of saying "Mommy pick me up" he would say "up pick Mommy me." What area of Danny's brain was damaged?

A) The prefrontal cortex.
B) Wernicke's area.
C) The temporal lobe.
D) Broca's area.

Question 73

Newborn infants and adults have the same duration of sensory memory.

Question 74

The ability of a child to categorize objects helps advance a child's cognition, but it is not a critical part of cognitive development.

Question 75

What does Chomsky think is housed in the language acquisition device (LAD)?

A) Universal grammar
B) Canonical babbling
C) Memories of conversations
D) The motor functions necessary for speaking

Question 76

One of the most important advances during the coordination of secondary schemas stage is object permanence.

Question 77

What happens when there is damage to Broca's area in the brain?

A) Damage to Broca's area will cause a person to become deaf.
B) Damage to Broca's area impairs the ability to speak coherently.
C) Damage to Broca's area inhibits the ability to speak fluently.
D) Damage to Broca's area impairs the ability to understand others' speech.

Question 78

The structure of the information processing system remains the same throughout the lifespan.

Question 79

When a child experiences cognitive equilibrium, his or her schemas match the outside world and represent it clearly.

Question 80

"Out of sight is out of mind" is a phrase consistent with the inability to understand object permanence.