Deck 12: Social Cognition Glossary

Question 1

Briefly list the three main strategies mothers can use to regulate infants' focus of attention.

Answer 1

1. Introducing
a. Orients attention
2. Maintaining
a. Reinforces focus of attention
3. Redirecting
a. Changes ongoing focus of attention

Question 2

Children who have siblings understand others' perspectives better and earlier (Peterson, 200). What does this finding suggest about how children learn about others?

Answer 2

Understanding of others' distinct knowledge emerges at least in part as a result of social interactions, particularly within the family. Children with siblings (esp. older siblings) will have more opportunities to learn about these social interactions.

Question 3

The age of onset of false belief understanding differs across Chinese and European-American communities (Liu et al., 2008). Chinese children in Hong Kong develop theory-of-mind understanding as much as two years later than Canadian English-speaking children. Discuss the implications of these findings.

Answer 3

Development of theory-of-mind seems largely culturally dependent or at least strongly culturally influences. In this domain, development is not universal across cultures but the culture the child is reared in significantly impacts the developmental trajectories children take.

Question 4

A key prerequisite for the development of social interactions with enduring relationships is

A) Language development.
B) Locomotor development.
C) Person permanence.
D) Face preference.

Question 5

Farroni and her colleagues (2002, 2006) showed newborn infants faces with averted and directed eye gaze while recording brain activity. Their findings suggest:

A) Newborns preferred to look at faces with averted gaze and showed unique brain activity in response to these faces.
B) Newborns preferred to look at faces with directed gaze and showed unique brain activity in response to these faces.
C) Newborns preferred to look at faces with averted gaze but brain activity did not discriminate between averted and directed eye gaze.
D) Newborns preferred to look at faces with directed gaze but brain activity did not discriminate between averted or directed eye gaze.

Question 6

Infants can identify a person based on

A) Audiovisual concepts of their faces and voices.
B) Their smell.
C) Their motion patterns.
D) All of the above.

Question 7

Turn taking is an important rule for social interactions because

A) It is polite.
B) It promotes synchrony of interaction.
C) It promotes secure attachment.
D) It is necessary for language acquisition.

Question 8

Which of the following statements about joint attention is NOT true?

A) Initiating joint attention can be achieved via eye movements.
B) Responses to joint attention may be impaired in autism spectrum disorders.
C) Initiation of joint attention emerges before response to joint attention.
D) Vocalizations such as "look" can be used to initiate joint attention.

Question 9

Joint attention is an important rule for social interactions because

A) It helps infants focus their attention.
B) It provides opportunities for social learning.
C) It allows infants to practice managing social attention.
D) All of the above.

Question 10

Dr Jones compares parent's speech directed towards 3-month-old infants and towards 15-month-olds. What kind of speech should she expect from mothers of 3-month-old infants?

A) Language referencing objects and places.
B) Language referencing actions.
C) Affect-laden speech.
D) Both a and b.

Question 11

Dr Jones compares parent's speech directed towards 3-month-old infants and towards 15-month-olds. What kind of speech should she expect from mothers of 15-month-old infants?

A) Language referencing objects and places.
B) Language referencing actions.
C) Affect-laden speech.
D) Both a and b.

Question 12

One potential explanation for infants' stranger anxiety around the middle of the first year is

A) Expression of fearful temperament tendencies.
B) Negative experiences with strangers in the past.
C) Social referencing, infants monitoring parent's response to stranger.
D) History of abuse or neglect.

Question 13

Effectance can be seen as an important type of motivation. What is motivated by effectance?

A) Motivation to thrive.
B) Motivation to act and alter environment.
C) Motivation to express oneself.
D) Motivation to maintain close contact to an attachment figure.

Question 14

Dr Rochat wants to determine if 4-month-old infants have a rudimentary sense of self. He shows the infants a concurrent (live) video of their own legs moving and the video of another baby's legs (both dressed the same). Videos are presented side-by-side. What kind of response would Dr Rochat obtain in this experiment if infants indeed have a sense of self?

A) Infants gaze more at one of the videos than at the other.
B) Infants start to move their legs more in response to the videos.
C) Infants stop their own leg movements in response to the videos.
D) Infants vocalize.

Question 15

To pass the rouge test, and infant has to

A) Look at own reflection in the mirror and show interest and joy.
B) Look at own reflection in the mirror and pat mirror image.
C) Look at own reflection in the mirror and vocalize or smile.
D) Touch mark on face and look away from mirror showing signs of embarrassment.

Question 16

Theory of mind refers to a child's ability to

A) Know what others are thinking.
B) Attribute mental states to others.
C) Understand that others' knowledge might differ from one's own.
D) Both b and c.

Question 17

Dr Smith wants to assess theory of mind in 10-month-old infants. How would she go about testing theory-of-mind abilities in these children?

A) Using a parent-report questionnaire.
B) Recording infants' verbal response during a false-believe task.
C) Using a violation of expectation paradigm.
D) None of the above, 10-month-olds do not have theory of mind.

Question 18

What may explain the observed discontinuity in theory-of-mind development over the first 5 years of life?

A) The presence of two different types of mentalizing (explicit and implicit).
B) Measurement error in the older age group.
C) The effects of nature and nurture.
D) An understanding about what others want in infancy.

Question 19

What factors might influence theory of mind development in infancy?

A) The amount of talking about emotion in the family.
B) The number of opportunities for social interactions (e.g., with siblings).
C) Sensitive mothering.
D) All of the above.

Question 20

Studies on cross-cultural difference in social cognition reveal

A) That all social cognition skills are universal across cultures.
B) That some differences in social cognition skills exist across cultures.
C) That parent education and SES, but not culture, influence social cognition.
D) None of the above.

Question 21

Some aspects of social cognition are culture-independent; among these are:

A) Gaze following.
B) Pretend play.
C) Habituation.
D) Violation of expectation response.

Question 22

Some aspects of social cognition are culture-dependent; among these are:

A) Gaze following.
B) Pretend play.
C) Habituation.
D) Violation of expectation response.

Question 23

Some abilities form the foundation of for social cognition and are present early in infancy; among these are

A) Attention to faces.
B) Language understanding.
C) Gesture understanding.
D) All of the above.

Question 24

Some social cognition abilities take a longer time to emerge and are likely influenced by specific experiences; among these are

A) Understanding of others' mental states.
B) Understanding of habituation.
C) Making gender-specific toy choices.
D) All of the above.

Question 25

Which one of the following is NOT an assumption governing infants' social interactions?

A) Understanding self as separate from others.
B) Understanding ways the self can affect others.
C) Understanding that other people have desires of their own.
D) Understanding the role of culture on social interactions.

Question 26

That people are multimodally specified means that:

A) People are seen, heard, smelled, and sometimes felt at the same time.
B) People deliberately use multiple modalities to interact with infants.
C) The infant brain is over-connected, resulting in a merging of the senses.
D) Infants prefer the visual domain over all other modalities.

Question 27

The onset of sharing and giving behaviors is important because

A) They open up new opportunities for learning and social interactions.
B) They allow infants to clean up after themselves.
C) They are a sign cortical maturation of the executive function system in the parietal lobe.
D) All of the above.

Question 28

What makes the study of development in infancy particularly challenging for scientists?

A) The fact that infants have only a limited response repertoire and no language.
B) That multiple factors can have direct or indirect effects on development.
C) That there are interconnections between neural, behavioral, social, and cultural influences on development.
D) All of the above.

Question 29

Meltzoff and Brooks want to study whether 12-month-olds understand that other people look at something in order to see the object. Describe an experiment that these experimenters could use to test this idea. Hint: a potential experiment involves blindfolds.

Question 30

Describe the typical set-up of a theory of mind experiment one would use to assess whether children understand that others have a different perspective than one's own.