Deck 7: Sensory and Perceptual Development

Question 1

Recognition (e.g., "I've heard that song before") and identification (e.g., "That was Hey Jude") are part of

A) sensation.
B) perception.
C) attention.
D) personality.

Answer 1

perception.

Question 2

The experience resulting from the stimulation of a sense organ is

A) sensation.
B) perception.
C) recognition.
D) attention.

Answer 2

sensation.

Question 3

The detection and discrimination of sensory information is referred to as

A) sensation.
B) attention.
C) recognition.
D) perception.

Answer 3

sensation.

Question 4

The cognitive process that involves the interpretation of sensory stimulation based on experience is known as

A) sensation.
B) perception.
C) attention.
D) recognition memory.

Question 5

The process of __________ is exemplified by a parent who fails to hear his preschooler calling "Daddy! Daddy!" because he is deeply engrossed in adult conversation.

A) sensation
B) perception
C) attention
D) consciousness

Question 6

Children who are heavy television viewers often hear their parents exclaim, "If the world were to blow up, you wouldn't even notice!" Which of their children's cognitive processes do the parents appear to be most concerned about?

A) Intelligence
B) Perception
C) Sensation
D) Attention

Question 7

In the sequence of time, which is the correct order of events?

A) Sensation, perception, attention
B) Sensation, attention, perception
C) Perception, sensation, attention
D) Attention, perception, sensation

Question 8

Which of the following examples is best described as sensation?

A) Detecting a sound
B) The identification of a melody
C) The ability to listen to the radio while the television is on
D) Recognizing a familiar voice

Question 9

Victor is watching television and his mother asks him to go get his hat. He does not move. Which cognitive process is most likely the cause of his inaction?

A) Sensation
B) Perception
C) Attention
D) None of the alternatives are correct

Question 10

_____ of the sensory systems are operative at birth; by the end of _____ they will achieve close to adult-levels of functioning.

A) All; infancy
B) Most; infancy
C) Most; childhood
D) All; childhood

Question 11

According to the Gibsons, developmental changes in perceptual skill primarily reflect

A) an increase in cognitive capacity.
B) a learned ability to combine small perceptual units into larger ones.
C) an increased ability to detect those properties of people and objects that change and those that remain the same.
D) the accumulation of knowledge about the world that can be used to mediate perceptual input.

Question 12

According to the __________ view, perception involves combining pieces of input through experience.

A) traditional learning
B) interactionist
C) Gibsonian
D) nativist

Question 13

The changes in blood cortisol level following circumcision are consistent with the assertion that

A) newborns cannot feel pain.
B) touch sensitivity increases over the first few days of life.
C) only boys have haptic perception at birth.
D) newborns are sensitive to external stimulation.

Question 14

Compared to newborn boys circumcised with anesthesia, those circumcised without were found, 4 to 6 months later, to be __________ to the pain associated with vaccinations.

A) insensitive
B) insensitive less
C) just as sensitive
D) more sensitive

Question 15

To assess the level of pain experienced by young children, which of the following indices may be most useful to health professionals?

A) Parental responses on a 10-point scale about the child's pain level
B) The child's adrenaline levels
C) The child's head movements
D) The child's facial expression changes

Question 16

The earliest age at which fetuses respond to touch is believed to be

A) 2 months post-conception.
B) 6 months post-conception.
C) during the ninth month in utero.
D) in the first few days following birth.

Question 17

Brian is participating in a pain measurement study in children. Which of the following movements is considered to be part of pain expression?

A) Nose wrinkle
B) Smiling
C) Brow higher
D) All of the alternatives are correct

Question 18

The active exploratory use of touch is called

A) intermodal integration.
B) synesthesia.
C) haptic perception.
D) kinesthesia.

Question 19

Touch is important because it

A) consoles crying infants.
B) soothes preterms.
C) increases positive emotion.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 20

Touch is important because it

A) consoles crying infants.
B) increases positive emotion.
C) increases visual attention.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 21

Evidence shows that parents can recognize their newborns through

A) smell.
B) touch.
C) the newborn's movements.
D) None of the alternatives are correct.

Question 22

Evidence suggests that the ability to smell odours is unambiguously present by

A) 2 months post-conception.
B) 6 months post-conception.
C) 7 months post-conception.
D) birth.

Question 23

Studies show that infants can first distinguish their mother's smell

A) by at least 3 days after birth.
B) by the end of the first week of life.
C) between weeks 2 and 4.
D) by the end of the first month of life.

Question 24

Newborn babies have a preference for __________ solutions and by 4 months of age, they prefer __________ tastes.

A) salty; sweet
B) sweet; sweet
C) sweet; salty
D) salty; salty.

Question 25

Research on the ability to differentiate tastes suggests that

A) newborn infants are able to distinguish tastes at birth, and preferences do not change with age.
B) newborn infants are not able to distinguish tastes until about 4 months of age.
C) surprisingly, newborn infants do not like sweet things.
D) newborn infants are able to distinguish among sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes.

Question 26

Vestibular sensitivity refers to

A) the active exploration of objects by touch.
B) our ability to detect gravity and the motion of our bodies.
C) the readjustment in the distance or direction of an action as required for responding appropriately to a perceptual experience.
D) the ability to detect colours at the high and low ends of the spectrum.

Question 27

__________ sensitivity is the perceptual experience that results from the motion of the body and the pull of gravity.

A) Kinesthetic
B) Vestibular
C) Haptic
D) Visual

Question 28

When in a situation where visual and vestibular information conflict, such as when the walls of a room move but the infant remains stationary, infant behaviour indicates a particular sensitivity to

A) the visual information, i.e., the infant falls backward.
B) the vestibular information, i.e., the infant falls foreword.
C) neither source of information reliably, i.e., the infant sometimes falls forward; sometimes, backward.
D) both visual and vestibular sources of information, i.e., the infant ends up spinning around in circles.

Question 29

The development of vestibular sensitivity and posture are a necessary scaffold for the development of

A) sound localization
B) pain perception,
C) smell and taste.
D) motor skills.

Question 30

The infant's ability to discriminate among different sounds has been tested using the ________ procedure.

A) paired-associate
B) primacy-recency
C) habituation-dishabituation
D) preference

Question 31

The habituation technique

A) exploits the baby's naturally occurring responses to changes in stimulation.
B) includes a dishabituation phase.
C) requires the use of at least two slightly different stimuli.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 32

The habituation technique involves repeatedly presenting a stimulus until the infant __________, then presenting a __________ different stimulus to see if the infant's attention toward it stays the same.

A) becomes tired; very
B) becomes tired; slightly
C) stops responding to it; very
D) stops responding to it; slightly

Question 33

Evidence shows that most fetuses respond to sound by at least _____ weeks post- conception.

A) 10
B) 20
C) 28
D) 38

Question 34

Evidence shows that most fetuses respond to sound approximately _____ months post- conception.

A) 2.5
B) 4
C) 7
D) 8

Question 35

A pregnant woman who swallowed a microphone in order to detect what her baby heard in utero would be wasting her time unless she swallowed the microphone after the baby had reached _____ gestational weeks.

A) 7
B) 12
C) 22
D) 28

Question 36

Melanie is participating in a research study on the fetus' ability to hear and react to sound. She is 34 weeks pregnant and her fetus is not yet responding to auditory stimuli. Which of the following responses is correct?

A) The fetus should react to the auditory stimuli in the next few weeks
B) The baby is likely to be born with a hearing deficit
C) Fetuses do not react to auditory stimuli in utero, they only hear after birth
D) The fetus is choosing not to respond to the auditory stimuli

Question 37

What is known about early hearing ability in newborn babies?

A) Newborn babies prefer their own mother's voice.
B) Newborn babies cannot tell the difference between their mother's voice and another woman's voice; however, they prefer female voices over male voices.
C) Newborn babies will suck more vigorously when they hear their mother's voice and their father's voice over strangers' voices.
D) Newborn babies prefer instrumental music over human conversation.

Question 38

As an index of the hearing abilities of either fetuses or newborns, which behaviour/state has been exploited?

A) Sucking rhythm
B) Heart-rate
C) Eye-clamping
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 39

What is known about the hearing abilities of newborns?

A) Newborns can recognize stories that they heard repeatedly while in utero.
B) Newborns can distinguish between the voice of their own mother and that of a female stranger.
C) If hearing their own mother's voice is contingent upon a particular sucking rhythm, newborns will adjust their sucking in order to hear their own mother's voice.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 40

Which of the following claims about neonatal hearing abilities appears to be true?

A) Newborns cannot discriminate between the voice of their own mother and that of a female stranger.
B) French newborns can discriminate between a woman speaking French and the same woman, speaking Russian.
C) Newborns can distinguish between a story read to them repeatedly as zygotes and a story that they have not heard before.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 41

Caitlin has been reading "The Cat in the Hat" to her fetus since she was 30 weeks pregnant. Which of the following statements most accurately describes how the baby will react once it is born?

A) It will prefer "The Cat in the Hat" to other stories
B) The baby couldn't hear in utero
C) The baby will not discriminate between different stories that will be read to him/her
D) None of the alternatives are correct

Question 42

Relative to adults, newborns are __________ to sound.

A) insensitive
B) less sensitive
C) just as sensitive
D) more sensitive

Question 43

Newborns are most sensitive to sounds _____ in pitch.

A) low
B) high
C) moderate
D) loud

Question 44

Which of the following sounds is most effective in soothing crying babies?

A) Low frequency tones
B) High frequency tones
C) Children's voices
D) Other babies' cries

Question 45

To date, research supports which of the following claims?

A) Newborn infants prefer to listen to their father's voices over strange male voices.
B) Six-month-olds can distinguish between lullabies played in different keys.
C) Babies whose mothers score high on scales of verbal output while pregnant tend to talk earlier than babies with mothers who spoke lesser amounts when pregnant.
D) Newborns are as sensitive to sound as adults.

Question 46

Mary shook a rattle for several minutes near a newborn's left ear. The newborn turned her head toward the left. Mary then shook the rattle continuously on the newborn's right, and the infant then turned her head toward the right. About one month later, Mary tried this same procedure again, but the infant did not turn her head in the direction of the rattle. The best explanation for this is

A) at 2 months of age, the infant lost the ability to orient.
B) the infant dishabituated.
C) this is a normal pattern of behaviour; the head turning to the rattle will reappear at 3 or 4 months of age.
D) the infant had the propensity but not the capacity to turn her head.

Question 47

Head turning to sounds occurs at birth, disappears a month later, only to reappear at 3 or 4 months of age. This exemplifies

A) a U-shaped function.
B) a post-neonatal function.
C) that 4 month olds have had functional neck muscles since birth.
D) that this response to sound at birth is reflexive and not a true indication of hearing ability, as it is at 3 or 4 months of age.

Question 48

Sound localization depends in large part on the detection of a time difference between when sound waves from a single source arrive at the two ears. Which of the following is true?

A) This ability is fixed at birth.
B) Recalibration (or readjustment) occurs in the visual modality, not in the auditory modality.
C) Recalibration is necessary in sound localization, because as the head grows larger, the distance between the two ears increases.
D) Both ears receive sound stimuli simultaneously.

Question 49

Compared with normal adult visual acuity of 20/20, the acuity of a newborn infant is estimated to be

A) the same, 20/20.
B) 20/100.
C) 20/200.
D) 20/400.

Question 50

The acuity of an infant approximates that of an adult

A) at birth.
B) by 6 months of age.
C) toward the end of the first year.
D) by age 2.

Question 51

The exact visual acuity of an infant is determined by the point at which she/he

A) begins to look longer at a grey picture than at a black and white bull's eye.
B) can detect the difference between a card that is blue from one that is grey.
C) can habituate to a striped card.
D) can no longer detect the difference between a card with narrow and compressed black and white stripes from one that is plain grey.

Question 52

What do we know about infants' ability to visually accommodate?

A) Adult-like visual accommodation ability is present at birth.
B) Visual accommodation improves after birth and is almost adult-like by 12 months of age.
C) The lens are focused at a distance of about 10 to 15 inches.
D) The 7 to 8 inch focus of newborns was selected through evolution, because this is the typical distance of the mother's face from the baby's eyes during feeding.

Question 53

What does current evidence suggest is the cause of the newborn's poor visual acuity?

A) The lens of the eye is fixed for optimal focus at about 7 to 8 inches.
B) The neural circuits in the brain are not sufficiently mature to pick up minor differences in the precision of focus.
C) Their immature visual system renders them colour blind.
D) Young babies have exceptional peripheral vision.

Question 54

Fantz' preference method is a powerful technique used to study a host of issues concerning infant vision. What is true about the preference method?

A) It measures heart or respiration rates of babies looking at a pair of visual stimuli.
B) It takes advantage of the fact that babies can be operantly conditioned to turn their heads.
C) It involves presenting stimuli one at a time and then comparing looking times toward each.
D) It involves presenting two visual stimuli simultaneously and then comparing looking times toward each.

Question 55

The fact that the ability to perceive blue develops later than the ability to perceive red and green seems to be due to the fact that

A) the blue cone system develops later than the red and green cone systems.
B) the red and green cone systems develop later than the blue cone system.
C) infants lack the contrast sensitivity required to perceive subtle colours like blue.
D) infants lack the pattern sensitivity required to perceive subtle colours like blue.

Question 56

Joyce went to the baby store to purchase wall decorations for her 4-month-old son's bedroom. The clerk suggested that babies lack colour vision and prefer black and white decorations with high-contrast edges. What would be a valid response to this clerk?

A) You're right, babies prefer high-contrast edges, and they only see the world in black and white.
B) You're right, babies prefer high-contrast edges, but they prefer contrasts that decrease in complexity as they get older.
C) I'm not sure I agree. My psychology professor says that colour vision is present at birth, although it does not approximate adult levels until closer to 4 months.
D) Since my baby is 4 months old, I'm sure he prefers pastels.

Question 57

Newborns prefer to look at

A) high-contrast edges.
B) blue objects.
C) pastel colours.
D) very densely packed arrays.

Question 58

Haith (1980) suggested that the young baby's preference for high contrast regions reflects a biological agenda to keep brain cells firing at a high level. This hypothesis rests on the premise that

A) visual stimulation causes the brain to develop new visual cells.
B) cell pathways deteriorate; use it or lose it.
C) visual stimulation is necessary to prevent loss of REM sleep.
D) unused cells will migrate to non-visual parts of the brain, thus compromising visual acuity.

Question 59

The baby is programmed to engage in visual activity that is adaptive. This statement is supported by the fact that

A) babies do not need to be prompted to find interesting things to look at.
B) babies prefer to look at stimuli that keeps brain-cell firing at a high level.
C) with age, infants are attracted to increasingly complex stimuli.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 60

Research by Haith (1990) suggests that, at first, babies see parts of visual arrays, but with development they are able to put the parts together and see them as a whole. Haith's findings support

A) what nurture theorist John Locke would predict.
B) what nature theorist Rousseau would predict.
C) the findings that people blind from birth who receive sight later in life can immediately coordinate visual with haptic information.
D) what environmental-learning theorists would not predict.

Question 61

The fact that visual organization abilities are relatively late developing may be explained by

A) infants' tendency to habituate to groups before elements.
B) infants' tendency to habituate to elements before groups
C) slow maturation of the primary visual cortex.
D) innate biases.

Question 62

Which of the following is false concerning face perception by newborn babies?

A) Some studies have not found a preference for faces over comparable non-face stimuli.
B) Newborns cannot track a moving face.
C) By about three months of age, the preference for faces over comparable non-face stimuli is clearly established.
D) Babies have shown a preference for attractive over unattractive faces.

Question 63

Which of the following is false about the capabilities of babies less than one year of age?

A) Infants prefer attractive composites over unattractive ones.
B) Infants have shape constancy.
C) Infants prefer to look at their own moving face rather than at other moving faces.
D) Infants can classify faces on the basis of sex.

Question 64

Which of the following sensory systems relies entirely on experiences that follow birth?

A) Audition
B) Olfaction
C) Vision
D) Touch

Question 65

Andy realized that a particular object was always a chair, regardless of the angle he viewed it from. This exemplifies

A) invariance.
B) size constancy.
C) shape constancy.
D) binocular depth stability.

Question 66

The realization that one's mother is always the same person even though she is encountered at different times and under different circumstances requires

A) size constancy but not shape constancy.
B) shape constancy but not size constancy.
C) recognition.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 67

A young boy was raised in the rainforest where he remained until adulthood. One day, after leaving the rainforest, he had the opportunity to look out over an open plain for the first time in his life. He saw a herd of animals in the distance and mistakenly thought they were insects. He made this mistake because he lacked

A) shape constancy.
B) size constancy.
C) brightness constancy.
D) visual acuity.

Question 68

The best advice to give a mother of a newborn who wants her baby to recognize her is

A) From birth, your newborn will be able to recognize your face because recognizing one's mother is an inborn ability.
B) Don't dramatically change your hairstyle or cover your hairline, or your newborn might not recognize you.
C) Because of your newborn's early ability to recognize you, be prepared to deal with stranger anxiety and separation anxiety almost immediately after birth.
D) Make sure that you stand the same distance away from your baby every time you see her, because size constancy is pretty shaky for the first six month of life.

Question 69

Based on research by Slater and colleagues (1990), babies can tell the difference between two different-sized cubes, even if the larger one is placed at a distance so that the retinal size of the two cubes is the same. These researchers

A) found that babies have shape constancy. Babies know that a cube is always a cube.
B) found that babies will always look longer at a smaller cube than at a larger cube.
C) were surprised that babies cannot habituate to cube size.
D) presented a small cube a varying distances. They later presented the small cube with a large cube that was placed at the distance required to produce an image of the same retinal size as the one produced by the small cube.

Question 70

Based on the findings of Spelke and her colleagues, under which of the following conditions are 4-month-old infants most likely to conclude that the obstructed object is a single continuous object rather than two objects?

A) A long rod, partly hidden by a block, moves up and down.
B) A block, partly hiding a rod, moves up and down.
C) A rod is partly hidden by a block, and both remain stationary.
D) A bar moves out in front of a sphere it had partially blocked.

Question 71

To assess whether infants see objects as continuous or discontinuous, researchers present babies with a display that includes an object, such as a rod, this is partly hidden by another object, such as a block. How do the researchers determine whether the infants see the hidden object as continuous or as two separate objects?

A) Researchers measure whether infants move their heads up and down in an attempt to see around the block.
B) Researchers hand the rod to the infant and observe their actions on it.
C) Researchers observe whether the infants try to remove the block.
D) Researchers later present the rod as a single object or two shorter rods and measure which the babies look at the longest.

Question 72

An infant is shown an object, such as a rod, which is partially hidden by another object, such as a block. In order for us to conclude that an infant perceived the rod as two separate rods, how would an infant have to respond in a subsequent trial in which she/he had a choice between looking at a single continuous rod or two separate rods?

A) The infant would look longer at the single rod.
B) The infant would look longer at the two rods.
C) The infant would divide his or her attention between the single rod and the two rods.
D) It is not possible to determine whether infants without language think the rod that is partly hidden is a single rod or two separate rods.

Question 73

Experiments with the visual cliff using heart rate as the dependent measure show that infants first appear to perceive depth at

A) 2 months of age.
B) 7 months of age.
C) 9 months of age.
D) 12 months of age.

Question 74

At what age do infants first appear to respond to the deep side of the visual cliff with fear?

A) 2 months of age
B) 7 months of age
C) 9 months of age
D) 12 months of age

Question 75

When infants are afraid, their heart rates __________, but when they are merely interested their heart rates __________.

A) decrease; increase
B) increase; decrease
C) decrease; also, decrease
D) increase; remain unchanged

Question 76

What motor milestone appears related to the appearance of fear of depth?

A) Sitting alone
B) Crawling
C) Walking
D) Reaching

Question 77

What measures do researchers use to determine whether infants perceive depth on the visual cliff?

A) Preference test and habituation
B) Habituation and sucking rate
C) Sucking rate and galvanic skin response
D) Heart rate and willingness to cross the deep side of the cliff

Question 78

In order to explain the relation between self-produced locomotion and fear of depth as assessed in the visual cliff, researchers have suggested that __________ is required.

A) new perceptual learning
B) a more unified understanding of space
C) experience with the effects of one's own movements
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 79

Of the following, who is most likely to have acquired depth perception?

A) Anthony who has been using a walker
B) Myriam who is starting to sit up
C) Carol who is 2 months old
D) Sandra who is a newborn

Question 80

Which of the following helps babies to perceive depth?

A) Pictorial cues
B) Motion parallax
C) Relative size of object
D) All of the alternatives are correct.