PSYC 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Habituation, Caffeine, Prenatal Development
Document Summary
The active fetus: can swallow, breathe, move, fetuses swallow amniotic fluid, and it is helpful for structuring the mouth and develop a sense of smell, and then they excrete it afterwards. Having amniotic fluid pass through the stomach and intestines is also necessary for these organs" development: when a fetus breathes, they breathe in amniotic fluid, it helps develop the lungs, grasping, sucking, rubbing, bumping uterine walls. Taste: swallows amniotic fluid, fetus has a sweet tooth. Smell: amniotic fluid has an odor of what mom ate, during fetal breathing, amniotic fluid comes into contact with olfactory receptors. Internally generated sounds (mother"s heartbeat, breathing, ect. : externally generated sounds (mom"s voice and people around her, fetus reacts by changes in heartbeat and movement. Fetal learning: habituation: most basic form of learning. Ex: a fetus"s heartbeat slow to a repeated stimulus, but quickens when it recovers to a novel (changed, new) stimulus: preferences: a procedure that measures preferences.
