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Why Study Infants

Why Study Infants. Three reasons for studying infancy Philosophical questions The opportunity for humans to study themselves Parental investment Applied concerns The study of preterm infants Infants of drug-using mothers. The Study of Infants. Past, present, and future

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Why Study Infants

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  1. Why Study Infants • Three reasons for studying infancy • Philosophical questions • The opportunity for humans to study themselves • Parental investment • Applied concerns • The study of preterm infants • Infants of drug-using mothers

  2. The Study of Infants • Past, present, and future • The philosophical debate – Nature versus Nurture • The empiricist argument • Knowledge comes through the senses • John Locke and the tabula rasa • William James and the infant’s world as a “booming, buzzing confusion”

  3. The Study of Infants • Past, present, and future • The nativist argument • Humans are endowed at birth with ideas or “categories of knowledge” • Immanuel Kant and Rene Descartes

  4. The Study of Infants • Past, present, and future • The main effects model • Nativist View • Nurturist View Constitution Constitution

  5. The Study of Infants • Past, present, and future • The interactional model Constitution

  6. The Study of Infants • Past, present, and future • The transactional model Constitution C1 C2 C3 C4 . . . . . . . Cn Environment E1 E2 E3 E4 . . . . . . . En

  7. Methods of Research in Infancy • Getting and keeping subjects • How do you find subjects • Sources of recruitment • Representativeness and sampling • Subject attrition • Why don’t researchers discuss sampling issues? • Infant state • The infant as a difficult experimental subject

  8. Methods of Research in Infancy • Response measures • Visual fixation measures • Sucking measures • Physiological measures • Age comparisons

  9. Experimental techniques • Spontaneous visual preference • The procedure • Limitations • Habituation techniques • Conditioning techniques • Physiological measures • Heart rate • Brain activation measures

  10. Aspects of perception • Visual acuity

  11. Aspects of perception • Pattern preferences • Facial configurations • Complexity and symmetry

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