PSYC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Dishabituation, Birth Weight, Observational Learning
Document Summary
At birth, the origins of cognition are very minimal. Infants only know their world through their direct senses and actions. An infant can think about something if they can see it. Competence (knowledge) vs. performance (requires other abilities) Also requires motor control and impulse control in addition to object permanence to pass a not b test. Show infants two outcomes of an event, one that is possible/expected and one that is impossible/unexpected. They will stare longer if they can comprehend that one outcome is impossible. They complete their knowledge of gravity and support after one year. Initial seeds of knowledge that get learning started. Some sound can be heard in the womb. ~6 months external noises elicit movement/heart rate changes. Less robust dishabituation if brain damage, low birth weight, younger. Speed of habituation and robustness of dishabituation correlates with iq. Biological predispositions that determine strength/ease of learning associations. Observed by at least two months of age.
