Question 1

Damage to Broca's area in the brain is likely to cause a condition called _____.

Accepted Answer

Broca's area is involved in language processing and speech production. Damage to this area can lead to aphasia, specifically Broca's aphasia, which is characterized by difficulty in speech production.

Question 2

Over time, overextensions _______.

Accepted Answer

Overextensions in language development (where a child applies a word in a broader context than appropriate) gradually pull back to their proper references as the child's understanding of language and concepts becomes more accurate.

Question 3

Darin, an infant, makes babbling sounds but cannot say actual words. This is an example of _________.

Accepted Answer

Prelinguistic vocalization refers to the sounds infants make before they begin to use language in a meaningful way, such as babbling, which is exactly what Darin is doing.

Question 4

Which of the following is a difference between the surface structure and the deep structure of language?

Accepted Answer

Surface structure refers to the specific syntactic form of a sentence, which can vary without changing the essential meaning, while deep structure relates to the fundamental, abstract meaning conveyed by a sentence, regardless of its specific syntactic expression.

Question 5

The presence of deferred imitation suggests that children have _________.

Accepted Answer

Deferred imitation is when a child observes a behavior and then later replicates it without the model present, indicating they have mentally represented the behavior pattern.

Question 6

Infants tend to repeat stimulating actions that first occurred by chance. In the context of Piaget's stages of development, this is an example of a primary circular reaction that focuses on __________.

Accepted Answer

Primary circular reactions, according to Piaget, are repetitive actions that focus on the infant's own body rather than the external environment. These actions are initially discovered by chance and are pleasurable, leading the infant to repeat them.

Question 7

Around the sixth month, an infant searches for an object that has rolled out of sight. In the context of Piaget's stages of development, this is evidence of _________.

Accepted Answer

This behavior is indicative of object permanence, which is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. According to Piaget, this understanding begins to develop around 4 to 7 months of age.

Question 8

The Bayley Scales of Infant Development comprises both mental-scale and motor-scale items and also includes a _________.

Accepted Answer

The Bayley Scales of Infant Development include a behavior rating scale in addition to mental-scale and motor-scale items, which assesses the infant's behavioral style and emotional regulation.

Question 9

In the context of language acquisition, the critical period is also known as the _________.

Accepted Answer

The critical period in language acquisition is also referred to as the sensitive period, a time frame in which the human brain is particularly receptive to acquiring language.

Question 10

Piaget suggested that, between 12 to 18 months of age, infants engage in tertiary circular reactions, or _________.

Accepted Answer

Tertiary circular reactions, according to Piaget, involve purposeful adaptations of established schemes to new situations, indicating a more sophisticated level of cognitive development in infants around 12 to 18 months of age.

Question 11

The average number of morphemes that communicators use in their sentences is called ________.

Accepted Answer

The mean length of utterance (MLU) is a measure used in linguistics to quantify the complexity of a speaker's language ability by calculating the average number of morphemes per sentence.

Question 12

Erica is a two-year-old girl. She sees an owl for the first time and asks her mother what it is, and her mother replies that "it is an owl." Now, every time Erica sees a bird she calls it an "ool." This process is called _____.

Accepted Answer

Overextension occurs when a child applies a word more broadly than it is usually applied, which is what Erica is doing by calling all birds "ool," based on her initial learning that an owl is called "ool."

Question 13

Damage to Wernicke's area in the brain is likely to cause a condition called _____.

Accepted Answer

Wernicke's area is involved in the understanding of spoken and written language. Damage to this area can lead to Wernicke's aphasia, a condition characterized by fluent but nonsensical speech and difficulty in understanding language.

Question 14

According to Piaget, the first stage of cognitive development is called the _________.

Accepted Answer

The sensorimotor stage is the first of Jean Piaget's stages of cognitive development, where infants from birth to approximately 2 years of age learn about the world primarily through their senses and motor activities.

Question 15

Which of the following is a symptom of Wernicke's aphasia?

Accepted Answer

Wernicke's aphasia, also known as receptive aphasia, is characterized by difficulty in understanding spoken language. Patients may speak in long sentences that lack meaning, add unnecessary words, and have trouble understanding speech from others.

Question 16

Research suggests that mirror neurons are connected with _________.

Accepted Answer

Mirror neurons are believed to play a role in the built-in human capacity to acquire language, as they are involved in the imitation processes that underlie language learning.

Question 17

Suppose Feriha, an infant, is familiar with a ball but not with a bat. When she is given a bat for the first time, she is able to distinguish between the two objects. This ability to discriminate between the two objects is referred to as _________.

Accepted Answer

Visual recognition memory enables infants to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar objects, which explains Feriha's ability to differentiate between the ball and the bat.

Question 18

Problems in the angular gyrus area of the brain can cause problems in _____.

Accepted Answer

The angular gyrus is located in the parietal lobe of the brain and is involved in a number of processes related to language, number processing, memory retrieval, attention, and theory of mind. Problems in this area can lead to difficulties with reading, among other cognitive issues.

Question 19

In the context of the human brain, Broca's area is located near the section of the motor cortex that controls the muscles of the _____.

Accepted Answer

Broca's area is located in the frontal lobe of the brain, near the region that controls the muscles involved in speech production, specifically the tongue and throat. This area is crucial for speech and language processing.

Question 20

Which of the following is a symptom of Broca's aphasia?

Accepted Answer

Broca's aphasia, also known as non-fluent aphasia, is characterized by laborious and patterned speech. Individuals with this condition struggle with speech production but typically understand spoken language.

Quiz 5: Infancy: Cognitive Development