Question 1

Professor Rovee-Collier and colleagues conditioned infants to kick their feet to make a mobile move. They used this operant conditioning paradigm to test infants'

Accepted Answer

Professor Rovee-Collier's research primarily focused on infant memory, using the conditioned foot-kicking response to study how infants remember the association between their actions and the effects (the mobile moving).

Question 2

In the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs), parents check off which words their infants understand or produce. Infants' performance is then compared to performance of a large sample of infants of the same age. The CDIs is an example of

Accepted Answer

The CDIs compare infants' performance to a large sample of infants of the same age, making it a norm-referenced test. This type of assessment is commonly used to compare an individual's performance to the performance of a larger group or normative sample.

Question 3

When Professor Martin tests whether an infant can already sit up alone and then also asks the primary caregiver whether his or her child can master this skill, Professor Martin ensures that his measure of the infant's ability to sit has

Accepted Answer

The answer of When Professor Martin tests whether an infant...

Question 4

Terry is a research assistant in Professor Samuel's laboratory. He is running a study in which 10-month-old crawling infants are shown a fascinating colorful music box and a plain block being placed on separate tables. They are then allowed to crawl to one of the two tables to indicate their toy choice. Terry notices that infants randomly choose between the two tables. What could be the reason for the infants' failure to choose the more fascinating toy?

Accepted Answer

Infants at this age do not have object permanence, meaning that they are not able to mentally represent objects that are no longer visible. Therefore, they may not remember that the fascinating toy was on one of the tables, and thus choose randomly.

Question 5

You decide that you want to study the relation between early experiences and later outcomes. For this study, you decide to monitor language development via a parent-questionnaire at age 12 months to see if it would predict the child's developmental outcomes at age 3 years. To study this question you need to use:

Accepted Answer

To study the relation between early experiences and later outcomes, a longitudinal design is necessary. This design involves monitoring the same individuals over an extended period of time. Therefore, using a parent-questionnaire to monitor language development at age 12 months and then measuring developmental outcomes at age 3 years would require a longitudinal design. A quasi-experiment design involves manipulating a variable, which is not relevant to this question. A parent diary may provide useful information, but it does not necessarily involve monitoring the same individuals over an extended period of time. Cluster analysis is a statistical method used to group similar individuals or variables, but it is not necessary for this study.

Question 6

You have just become a lab manager at a prominent infant lab. The lab has some old data with 6-month-old infants that were collected 10 years ago. Your task is to recruit a new group of 6-month-olds to compare to the original group. What concerns do you have about this comparison?

Accepted Answer

Cohort effects are a concern because the new group of 6-month-olds has grown up in a different time period than the original group, potentially affecting the comparison due to changes in societal, environmental, or technological factors over the decade. Attrition is not relevant in this context as it refers to participants dropping out of a study over time, which does not apply to the scenario of comparing two distinct groups collected at different times.

Question 7

The same lab is conducting a longitudinal study with assessments at 6, 18, and 30 months. The study goal is to follow a total of 50 infants over the time period. However, when checking the study log you find that already 60 infants were assessed at age 6 months. The graduate student tells you that more infants were recruited because of:

Accepted Answer

The additional recruitment of infants beyond the planned 50 is most likely due to expected attrition, or the likelihood that some infants will drop out of the study over time. By recruiting more infants at the outset, the study can ensure that a sufficient number of participants are retained at each time point to maintain statistical power and validity. The other options (unbiased sampling and normal distribution) do not seem relevant to this situation.

Question 8

During a lab meeting, your PI announces that she will start to study brain activity in the lab. The PI describes how the children will be able to do the brain recordings while sitting on their parent's lap and that all recordings will be done in a small room adjacent to your office. What method is your PI most likely talking about?

Accepted Answer

The fact that the recordings can be done with children on their parent's lap suggests that the method is non-invasive and does not involve large, stationary equipment like fMRI or PET scanners. Event-related potential (ERP) recordings are typically done using small, portable equipment and can be easily done in a small room like the one described by the PI.

Question 9

A number of studies on face perception have shown that within the first few months of life infants prefer to look at faces of their own race, female faces, and at attractive over unattractive faces. This is an example of:

Accepted Answer

This phenomenon is an example of natural preference, as infants show an inherent inclination towards certain types of faces without prior learning or experience, indicating an innate predisposition.

Question 10

A 3-month-old and a 15-month-old infant both complete the norm-referenced Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II. The 3-month-old obtains a standardized score of 52; the 15-month-old obtains a standardized score of 51. Standardized scores have a mean of 50, and a standard deviation of 10. What do these results suggest about the children's performance?

Accepted Answer

Both children's standardized scores fall within 1 standard deviation of the mean score, indicating that they are developing adequately for their age. Therefore, D (Both children seem to be developing adequately) is the correct choice. There is no indication of a developmental delay in either child based on their scores. Furthermore, the children may not have completed the same items on the assessment due to differences in the age-specific items included in the test.

Question 11

Professor Johnson is interested in studying the impact of diaper use on infants' sleeping behavior. He wants to know if the use of disposable diapers allows infants to sleep through the night at an earlier age. Discuss the difficulties of answering Professor Johnson's question.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Professor Johnson is interested in studying the...

Question 12

What are the advantages and disadvantages of neurological assessments compared to behavioral assessments?

Accepted Answer

The answer of What are the advantages and disadvantages of...

Question 13

Describe the conditioned head-turn procedure. How could it be used to study whether infants can discriminate between native and non-native speakers of their mother tongue?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Describe the conditioned head-turn procedure. How could...

Quiz 3: 3methods of Research in Infancy