Hello new parents today we will be going over information processing in depth and you will learn what to expect of your little ones. Information processing theory is "A perspective that compares human thinking processes, by analogy, to computer analysis of data, including sensory input, connections, stored memories, and output." For example you will see how newborns have an automatic cry reflex when they are hungry. Then compare it to a little bit older infant will see their bottle and remember that it helps to relieve their hunger and grab it to start drinking it. "Information-processing research has found impressive intellectual capacities in the infant. For example, concepts and categories seem to develop in the infant brain by about 6 months (mandler, 2007; Quinn, 2004)." Now we will go in depth into information processing the subject will be affordances.
Affordances
Affordance is defined as "An opportunity for perception and interaction that is offered by a person, place, or object in the environment." We will first go over the concepts from the Gibsons. "Decades of thought and research led Eleanor and James Gibson to conclude that perception is far from automatic (E. Gibson, 1969; J. Gibson, 1979)." Gibsons believe that environment can offer a lot of opportunities for their perceptionand interaction. People, places, and objects are all opportunities which are called affordance. Affordance is perceived in four different factors which are: Sensory awareness, immediate motivation, current level of development, and past experience.
We are now going to look at movement. Dynamic perception which is primed to focus on movement and change. Babies are very interested in movement and people. Infants absolutely love movements as soon as they learn to move there bodies they love to grab, scoot, crawl, and walk. "To their delight, they realize that such motions change what they world affords them. As a result, infants work hard to master each successive motor activity (Adoph & Berger, 2005)." Babies are so attractive to things that move like dogs, cats, and bugs. I know my son who is seven months old loves to watch the cats move and he tries to scoot over to the cat to grab their fur. This is a great example of movement and the different stages your babies will go through. A ball was moved at different speeds in front of three to nine month old babies. Almost all of them would attempt to touch or catch the ball. "However, marked differences appeared in their perception of the affordance of "catchableness." The younger infants would not try to catch the slower moving balls, but would try to catch the faster balls and being unsuccessful. The nine month old would know the balls afforded catching or not. They would then grab the slow moving balls and let the faster balls just fly by them, because they knew they could not catch the faster moving balls. It is so interesting when you look at this study and you can see a difference with out your baby plays in just a few weeks or months. Infants are always changing. Here is an example of my seven month old which I consider an older infant will do when he gets rolled a faster moving ball and a slower moving ball. The first video shows me rolling him a faster ball, he understands that he can to catch it so he just turns to me and starts crying. Then the second video shows me rolling the ball to him much slower and he understands that he is able to catch this ball, because it is moving slower.
Now we will look out how infants have a people preference. Infants will respond to their caregivers feelings and expressions if they are smiles, laugh, or yell. "Infants connect facial expression with tone of voice long before they understand language." I can see this in my son he is very affected by tone of voice. He can be perfectly happy and then someone comes into the room shouting and he will begin to cry. This really makes me aware of your tone around your infant, because they can pick it up instantly and be affected by it. At as young as around three months babies can look at their mother and tell if they are happy or on happy by their tone of voice and expressions on their faces. Infants around that age can also tell familiar faces from strangers faces. They may smile instantly at their mother, but then when a stranger walks up to them at a store it may take them a while to smile at them. Here is an example:
* This picture is from halloween this year my son was affected by his cousin talks too loudly to him and giving him a little too much love so he started to cry.
* Now this photo shows that when his cousin is more calm around him he will smile and have fun.
I hope this post was good for you of new parents to see what is to come to your little ones and that they really do change from week to week. They are always learning something new and their information processing grows at an incredible rate.
-Nicole Peterson
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