Meltzoff

Andrew Meltzoff is internationally known for his work on infant imitation, origins of speech and language, and the sense of touch leading to body mapping and the development of empathy. His studies of the infant brain through MEG and various controlled experiments have been key in the development of policies and practices used today.

His initial studies on imitation included making faces at newborns, peer imitation, and watching television. Many of these studies led to awareness that social-emotional development begins very early on. Basically, you begin teaching your baby tone and language as well as who is in their social circle at one month prior to birth.

As the infant experiences being touched, certain areas of the brain react very early on. Once the infant grasps the idea of their personal body map they are able to relate to others, mainly mom or caregiver at this point. As they grow the inclination of caring and nurturing or empathizing with peers and others grows, too.

Refrences:

http://ilabs.uw.edu/institute-faculty/bio/i-

f-phdlabs-andrew-n-meltzof

Meltzoff, Andrew N., Born to Learn: What Infants Learn From Watching Us, Referenced from 

N. Fox & J.G. Worhol (Eds.), The Role of Early Experience in Infant Development, Skillman, NJ: Pediatric Institute Publications, 1999.

http://ilabs.washington.edu/meltzoff/pdf/99Meltzoff_BornToLearn.pdf

https://america.cgtn.com/2016/01/02/dr-andrew-meltzoff-born-learning

Dr. Anthony James DeCasper

     DeCasper’s most notable research focused on infant auditory function. One study identified that newborn infants differentiate their mother’s voice over others and prefer caregivers for comfort. Other studies DeCasper was associated with involved speech development connected through hearing. Most of his research was collected through experimental testing. DeCasper’s contributions to developmental psychology, specifically prenatal and postnatal development, have uncovered how hearing is an essential part of bonding/forming attachments beginning in utero (Busnel, et al., 2016). It’s also important to acknowledge his collaborations with other researchers lead to discovering left/right ear processes analyzing specific individual pieces of auditory information; while also aiding cochlear implant research, implants to provide hearing to deaf/hearing impaired individuals (Greensboro, 2016). Summarizing his research, he observed how developing in the early stages of human life utilizes all of the senses to adapt to the environment and learn.

Works Cited

Busnel, M., Fifer, W., Granier- Deferre, C., Lecuyer, R., Michel, G., Moon, C., . . . Spence, M. (2016, September 20). Tony DeCasper, the man who changed contemporary views on human fetal cognitive abilities. (W. D. Psychobiology, Producer) Retrieved from Researchgate Web site: 10.1002/dev.21478

University of Greensboro Department of Psychology. (2016). In memoriam: Dr. Anthony James (Tony) DeCasper. Retrieved from UNC Greensboro Department of Psychology Web Site: https://psy.uncg.edu/in-memoriam-dr-anthony-james-tony-decasper/

Anthony (Tony) DeCasper

Anthony (Tony) DeCasper

Dr. Anthony James "Tony" DeCasper studied humans in the prenatal and newborn stage in the 1980s and was one of few researchers who focused on such a specific area. DeCasper focused mostly on auditory impact on cognitive abilities of prenatal and newborns, and concocted a unique way of studying such phenomena, as it was similar to operant conditioning. He noticed a correspondence between newborn sucking actions and avian pecking actions in a burst-pause sequence. DeCasper then played the sound of their mother's voice and a voice of an unknown woman and he allowed them to "choose" which of the two that were being played by changing their temporal patterns of their own sucking pattern. DeCasper found that these sucking burst occurrences were correlated with the preceding pause. DeCasper was also used to measure the responsiveness of an infant to complex, naturalistic and auditory instances with results showing more evidence of memory and selective attention, along with the impact of prenatal exposure for early perception, behavior, and cognitive development.

DeCasper also found evidence that infants and newborns will recognize their mother's voice, as they chose to hear their mother's voice over that of a female stranger. DeCasper is best known for this discovery, as well his discoveries in prenatal and neonatal perception can contribute to cognitive development in humans.

References:

"The-Cat-In-The-Hat" studies and other work by Tony DeCasper. (2019). Early Learning Project. Retrieved 9 March 2019, from http://www.earlylearningsydney.com/blog/the-cat-in-the-hat-studies-and-other-work-by-tony-decasper

In memoriam: Dr. Anthony James (Tony) DeCasper - Psychology. (2016). Psychology. Retrieved 9 March 2019, from https://psy.uncg.edu/in-memoriam-dr-anthony-james-tony-decasper/

Tony DeCasper

Anthony (Tony) DeCasper was a former Developmental Psychology Professor at the University of North Carolina. He began his graduate work at the University of Iowa and received his PhD from Emory University. DeCasper's main research was behaviorism focused on prenatal and infant cognitive abilities and behavior. His research began with newborn babies. His experiment used operant conditioning by exposing babies to an auditory stimulus in correlation with sucking. This research discovered that babies could "choose" the auditory stimulus by changing their sucking patterns. DeCasper moved on to research the learning abilities of babies before birth as well. Dr. DeCasper was one of the first people to research memory and learning abilities of infants. His research was ground-breaking in the area of cognitive development. DeCasper's research changed the way that parents, researchers, and health providers viewed the mental capacities of infants and helped make headway in the research area of learning.

Busnel, M.C., Fifer, W., Granier-Deferre, C., Lecuyer, R., Michel, G., Moon, C., Panneton, R., Schaal, B., & Spence, M. (2016). Tony DeCasper, the man who changed contemporary views on human fetal cognitive abilities. Dev Psychobiol. DOI: 10.1002/dev.21478

Andrew Meltzoff

     I have chosen to do Andrew Meltzoff, PhD. He is a known expert on infant and childhood development mostly focusing on cognition development and personality (Institution for Learning & Brain Sciences). What has helped his practice is the research on social emotional development and a child's understanding of other people (Institution for Learning & Brain Sciences). Andrew Meltzoff spent twenty years contributing his expertise on the subject, he gave many ideas and new facts for Developmental Psychology (Institution for Learning & Brain Sciences).

Brain Sciences, UW Institute for Learning. Andrew Meltzoff. Retrieved From: http://ilabs.uw.edu/institute-faculty/bio/i-labs-andrew-n-meltzoff-phd

Robert L. Fantz

Robert Fantz was a developmental psychologists who focused on infant perception and visual experience. Specifically, Fantz was interested in what babies could and could not perceive (PsyBlog, 2007). The methods that Fantz employed to understand infant perception often included setting an infant into an apparatus that limits their vision to two separate images that the baby can choose to focus on. He would then track the infants eye movements to see what types of images babies prefer to look at. Fantz and Miranda (1975) concluded that infants prefer patterns with curved lines over patterns with straight lines (p. 226). In psychology today, we use Fantz's findings to help understand how babies perceive the world (PsyBlog, 2007). Fantz was able to determine preferences in humans that could not yet speak, and his work is still useful today in the study of infant perception and cognitive development.  

References

Fantz, R. L. (1975). Newborn Infant Attention to Form of Contour. Child Development, 46, 224-228. doi:10.2307/1128853

PsyBlog (2007, February 9). What Are Babies Watching? [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.spring.org.uk/2007/02/what-are-babies-watching.php

Carolyn Rovee-Collier

            Carolyn Rovee-Collier, a world-renowned cognitive development expert, not only discovered mobile conjunctive reinforcement, but she completely changed the way that psychologists considered the learning habits and memory of infants. Her breakthrough came from the experiences she had with her own eldest son. As she worked on her thesis for grad school, she would keep her son occupied and content with the mobile above him. Eventually, she tied a ribbon around her son’s ankle and attached it to the mobile so that he could power the movements of the mobile himself using his kicks. After a few times of Carolyn doing that, he “would start to kick before the ribbon was attached to his ankle” (Rutgers). This instilled the idea in her that infants can learn and remember things. 

            Her findings completely altered the way that psychologists looked at the way that infants learn and how their memory works. She also played a large part in the understanding of “how early experience affects later behavior” (FABBS), as well as finding out that babies remember things from months beforehand after being exposed to the old stimulus. Needless to say, she played a large part in the way that psychologists and the public consider the learning capacity and memory skills of infants.

References

Rutgers. (n.d.). About the psychology department: Carolyn Rovee-Collier. Retrieved from https://psych.rutgers.edu/faculty-emeriti/496-obituary-for-carolyn-rovee-collier (accessed March 4, 2019).

Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS). (n.d.). In memory of… Carolyn Rovee-Collier. Retrieved from https://fabbs.org/our_scientists/carolyn-rovee-collier-phd/ (accessed March 4, 2019).

Carolyn Rovee-Collier

Carolyn Rovee-Collier

            Carolyn was a developmental psychologist who believed that memory processes and thinking processes are closely related to infants and adults.  She claims that memories that we have from infancy are never lost, they are just hard to retrieve and access from our memory as an adult (Vitello, 2014).

            In her studies concerning infants, she would place an infant in a crib, put a ribbon on the infant’s foot, and see record how many times the child would kick.  One end was attached to a mobile hanging over the crib.  The infants learned that kicking their foot would move the mobile (A.W.W. Norton & Company, N/A).

            Carolyn Rovee-Collier had made important discoveries concerning Developmental Psychology and has allowed us to better understand infant’s memories and the way they develop and learn how to do certain tasks.

Bibliography

A.W.W. Norton & Company. (N/A). Can Infants Remember?(A.W.W Norton & Company) Retrieved March 2019, from Psychology: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/psych/psychology8/ch/08/critthinking.aspx

Vitello, P. (2014, October 22). Carolyn Rovee-Collier, Who Said Babies Have Clear Memories, Is Dead at 72. Retrieved March 2019, from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/us/carolyn-rovee-collier-who-said-babies-have-clear-memories-is-dead-at-72.html

            

Carolyn Rovee-Collier-Baby Memory

Carolyn Rovee-Collier was the name that peaked my curiosity from the list. Reading through her obituary on Rutgers website, she seemed to be an amazing woman.  She received her undergrad degree from Louisiana State University and then was accepted into a male dominated institution-Brown’s University, from which she received her Ph.D.  She was writing her thesis when she had an experience that launched her career.  Any mom knows that when she is trying to focus on something, having to redirect to quiet a fussy baby is not always fun.  While writing, she would have to restart the mobile to keep baby happy when it would stop.   She tied a ribbon on his leg so that when he kicked, the mobile would move.   She started to notice that he would kick when she would lay him down, noticing that he would remember that if he kicked the mobile would move.  While teaching at Rutgers, she led a team of students that became known as “the Baby Lab”, which studied baby’s memories and wrote/co-authored many published reports (Rutgers, 2014). 

                One of her published reports, “The Development of Infant Memory” outlined and presented information about a study she conducted.  She used two different age groups with two different tasks to show that infants do in fact have memory.  The task observed for 2 to 6-month old’s had to do with the ribbon and the leg trick. The task for 6 to 18-month-old the kiddos would move the train around the track by pushing down a button.  She even tested the memory retention through adding changes such as a new mobile or train and demonstrated that they will do the same movement (kick to move a mobile) in different places such as home vs daycare (Rovee-Collier, 1999).  She did show that retention decreases as time goes on if not reinforced…which is no different that what we as adults see as we prep for Anatomy tests. Review is key. 😊   

Rugers. (2014). Faculity Emerti;Carolyn Rovee-Collier in Memorandum.  https://psych.rutgers.edu/people/faculty/faculty-emeriti/496-obituary-for-carolyn-rovee-collier.  Accessed March 6^th, 2019 

Rovee-Collier, C. (1999). The Development of Infant Memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(3), 80–85. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00019

Week of March 4th

For this post, I chose to talk about Carolyn Rovee-Collier.  Her greatest achievement was known as her “Baby Lab” family.  Most people that were involved in this were the members of a project she designed in 1974 called Rutgers Early Learning Project.  Those members and Collier were the ones who started the “Baby Lab”.   The team members studied babies' memories.  They went all over New Jersey and made about two to three thousand home visits of babies a year.  Collier and her team studied babies and their memory.  They discovered that babies of 2 months can retain a memory for about a week and one-year olds can retain a memory for as long as 3 months.  In her study, she used a string tied to the mobile above the crib and the other end of the string tied to the baby's foot.  Collier realized that the baby wouldn’t fuss while the mobile would spin, but when it wouldn’t spin the baby would fuss.  This is why she decided to use a string.  While the string was attached to the mobile and the foot, the baby would kick making the mobile spin.  After a while, Collier noticed that the baby would kick before the string was even attached.  She then realized that this was establishing a sense of memory in the baby’s mind.  She tried this task with children older than 2 months and realized it didn’t spark an interest in them.  She tried a different study using a toy train and a lever.  The pressing of the lever would make the train move.  Collier contributed greatly in the memory of infants.  She found different stages of memory in infants.  She discovered that infants learn quickly and remember over long periods of time.         


References 
Tomaseli, D. (n.d.). New State Center Opens at Rutgers (Click for more info). Retrieved from https://psych.rutgers.edu/faculty-emeriti/496-obituary-for-carolyn-rovee-collier
Tomaseli, D. (n.d.). New State Center Opens at Rutgers (Click for more info). Retrieved from https://psych.rutgers.edu/faculty-emeriti/496-obituary-for-carolyn-rovee-collier
Psychology, 8e StudySpace. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.wwnorton.com/college/psych/psychology8/ch/08/critthinking.aspx

Robert Frantz - Week of March 4th

Robert Frantz- Developmental Psychologist

Robert Frantz was a developmental psychologist whose primary focus was on infant perception.
His intentions were to disprove the notion that infants lacked pattern vision/recognition during the very
first parts of life (Frantz, 1963). Franz conducted multiple experiments that measured not only
children's glances at pattern but the amount of time spent fixated on such patterns. In his experiment
of “pattern vision in newborn infants,” Frantz discovered that there was twice as much infantile visual
attention to pictures containing patterns opposed to solid colors (pp.296-297).

Prior to this study Frantz coined a few methods to study infants such as the “preference method,”
(Essays, 2018) which was a simple test that evaluated the preferred stimulus of an infant by
presenting them both at the same time and seeing which one the infant gravitated towards (para, 2).
Although the legitimacy of the preference method was criticized, it was used as a platform to perform
other infant experiments such as depth perception to determine if a child could choose between
something closer or further away (Kavsek et al., 2009). Furthermore, in 1961 Frantz developed the
preferential looking paradigm which is what later backed up his visual pattern study in 1963 by
determining that the amount of time spent looking at one stimulus over the other allows one to infer
preference (Durham University, 2019). This theory has continued on as a pertinent method in current
cognitive infant studies.

Frantz’s studies changed scientists perception of infantile perception by providing factual evidence
that infants has the ability to recognize and distinguish not only patterns but also depth recognition.
These studies later contributed to the understanding of the development of children's eyes and the
process in which their visual horizons expand and take new information in. So many love to
underestimate children's abilities to understand and process new information but Frantz was a
scientist who opened new doors for understanding what goes on inside infants heads.

References

Durham University. (2019). Preferential looking procedure. Retrieved From  https://www.dur.ac.uk/
psychology/research/developmental_psychology/babylab/methods/looking/

Essays, UK. (2018). Psychological research studies. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/
essays/psychology/psychological-research-studies.php?vref=1

Frantz, R. (1963). Pattern vision in newborn infants. Science 140(3564) (pp. 296-297): American
Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved from http://home.fau.edu/lewkowic/web/
Fantz%20Infant%20Preferece1963.pdf

Kavsek, M., Granrud, C.E., & Yonas, A. (2009). Infants’ responsiveness to pictorial depth cues
in preferential reaching studies: A meta-analysis. Infant behavior and development, 32. (245-253).

Prompt for the week of March 4th

For this activity, as mentioned last section, you will need to choose one of the following infant researchers: DeCasper, Fantz, Rovee-Collier, or Meltzoff.

• Anthony (Tony) DeCasper
• Robert Fantz
• Carolyn Rovee-Collier
• Andrew Meltzoff

Once you choose, you will need to talk about the following for each:

1. What did he or she research?
2. What novel method did they employ to study infants?
3. What did they learn and contribute to the field of Developmental Psychology?

Because you will be consulting outside sources, you will need to follow standard APA guidelines, and providing citations for everything you relate. Also, be sure to write these in your own words.