Affordance = each of the various opportunities for perception, action, and interaction that an object or place offers to any individual.
Affordances depend on
Past experiences
Current developmental/maturation level
Sensory awareness of the opportunities
Immediate needs and motivation
Reflexes- some of the first affordances
Graspability, suckability, noisemaking, and movability
Early perceptual abilities
Visual cliff experiment depth perception
Dynamic Perception
Definition: primed to focus on movement and change
Object permanence
ability to understand that people and objects still exist even when they cannot be seen, touched, or heard
Baillargeons hinged screen experiment
Key Elements of Cognitive Growth
Categorization
As age increases, categorization of objects becomes more complex.
Memory
Freud: infantile amnesia = the inability to remember anything that happened before the age of two years and only important events before the age of five years
Reminder session = an experience that triggers an entire memory
memory of young infants can be reactivated
Deferred Imitation
Definition: the ability to witness, remember, and later copy a particular behavior
Awareness of Cause and Effect
Launching event triggers a particular happening
Infants begin to draw cause and effect inferences at 6-10 months