Development - models of development

Progressive series of changes in structure, function, and behavior patterns that occur over the lifespan of a human being or other organism (APA definition)
Increase in complexity over time at cellular, multi-cellular, organims-environment and brain to mind level

Successive changes
Later changes influenced/limited by earlier changes

Vitalists
Preformationists

That the functions of living organisms are determined by some sort of life force (called the engine of development) or principle

That development consists of the emerging into mature form of the traits and capacities that exist in prototypical form in the germ cell (already has all necessary info for subsequent generations)
Eg. homunculus believed to exist in sperm leading to formation of human (argued by Hartsoeker who believed he could see a little human in the head of the sperm)

Nativism
Empricisim
Constructivism

Babies born with innate knowledge about how some core aspects of the world work (eg. objects, actions, numbers and space)
Argued by Spelke + Kinzler 2007

Baby born aas a statistical learning machine
Sensitive to environment and extract info from it
By 3 months:
- >7million eye movement
- ~400 hours of face time
Argued by Aslin 2016

Biased to learn through interactions
Seek out info and test hypotheses
Interaction between genes and environment
Information constructed anew in the process of individual development

C.H. Waddington
Jean Piaget

Coined the term epigenetic landscape
20th century

Visual metaphor that depicts development as a ball rolling down a hill with valleys of various depths and steepness, to convey the idea that some aspects of development are directed along certain general pathways and likely to occur under most circumstances but that the exact sequence of paths varies across individuals and can be altered by sudden environmental or genetic change

Lack of collaboration beteen neural and cognitive development
Recent arguments: important to include underlying genetics as well as social and physical environent to better understand development

Social + physical environment
Cognition + behaviour
Neuroanatomy + brain structure
Genetics/epigentics

Brain is developed only through activity, and only through that are the functions localised and associated in it
Late 19th century

Development involves...
- Circular (bi-directional) causality
- Interactivity + brain networks (developing child interacts with dynamic social + physical envrionments)
- Self-organising + activity-dependent processes

Develpment doesn't work linearly
Genes can affect NETs but also can happen the other way around

Lerner et al 2011
Argues that the active, developing individual is what drives their own development

Development a result of inner and outer interactions
Inner interactions: genetics / brain / cognitive / behaviour
Outer interactions: physical world (niche construction) / social world (parent-child interaction)

Assimilation and accommodation

Epiricism = environment shapes child's mind
Constructivism:
Knowledge constructed via child's actions upon the environment
Cognitive develpoment starts from innate knowledge (schemas)
Schemas allow for new knowledge to be learnt, building on from innate substrates
Cognition develops in distinct stages (each stage characterised by limitation on cognition which has to be overcome to progress to next stage)

0-2y = sensory-motor stage
2-6y = preoperational stage
7-11y = concrete operational stage
12y-adult = formal operation stage

Infant understands world through its physical actions on it

Child can mentally represent aspects of the world, but with limitations

Child can use 'operations' or mental actions to solve problems

Ability to deal with hypothetical and abstract

Invariant sequence - can't skip stages
Hierarchical - each stage uses knolwedge from previous stage
Radical restructuring of though procceses at each stage - qualitative change
Concurrence - development is domain general

Incorporating new info into existing knowledge structures

Modifying old knowledge structures to fit new info

Leads to accommodation - drives change to the next stage

Infants capable of more than suggested by Piaget
Piaget over-estimated abilities of children in formal operatoinal stage
Neglected changes in adolescence
Stage theories don't take into account individual differences between children and populations (studied his own chidren, middle-class, well-educated)

Ability to mentally represent object even when it's not visible

Sensori-motor

After 8months
BUT still show 'A-not B error' on a seasrch task

Infant observes as toy repeatedly put into well A and then covered
Trials repeated until infant consistently reaches for well A to receive toy
Then toy place into well B (with infant observing)
8month olds typically continue to reach for A even though they see if go into B

Executive integration of inhibiting prepotent response while holding memory of new location in working memory
Piaget suggested that it showed the capacity to hold a representation of an object, even when it is occluded

- Highly replicable BUT context dependent (age of success depends on number of repetitions and delay period)
- Evidence suggests error more due to inability to inhibit prepotent response than lack of object permanence
- Looking measures give different results to reaching tasks

Representational capacity gradually develops
Changes linked to actions infants are able to perform at different points during the sensori-motor period

Using non-search procedures might show sophisticated understanding of objects in very young infants

Infant habituated to one event
Second event presented that violates expectation
Infants expected to show surprise (longer looking)

Infants shown screen that rotated away by 180degrees until habituated
Then wooden box placed in path of screen
Possible condition: screen stopped rotating at box
Impossible condition: screen rotated the full 180degrees
Infants showed suprise at impossible not possible condition (younger than Piaget suggested)

3.5 months