Lifespan Development. Tara L. Kuther

have a positive impact on early child development while providing good entertainment for babies and convenience for parents (Robb, Richert, & Wartella, 2009). Certainly, even very young infants attend to video material, as its movement, color, and rapid scene changes are attractive (Courage, 2017).

      But do baby videos really aid development? Brain-building claims made by baby media manufacturers are not supported by longitudinal studies, which offer no evidence of long-term benefits of media use in early childhood (American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media, 2016; Courage & Howe, 2010; Ferguson & Donnellan, 2014). For example, one study tested a popular DVD program that claims to help young infants learn to read. Ten- to 18-month-old infants who regularly watched the program for 7 months did not differ from other infants in intelligence, cognitive skills, reading skill, or word knowledge (Neuman, Kaefer, Pinkham, & Strouse, 2014). Baby videos are often advertised as aiding language development, yet several studies found that children under 2 years of age showed no learning of target words after viewing a language-learning DVD up to 20 times (DeLoache et al., 2010; Ferguson & Donnellan, 2014).

      Infants learn more readily from people than from TV, a finding known as the video deficit effect (Anderson & Pempek, 2005). For example, when 12- to 18-month-old infants watched a best-selling DVD that labels household objects, the infants learned very little from it compared with what they learned though interaction with parents (DeLoache et al., 2010). Recently, the video deficit effect has been relabeled as a transfer deficit because infants are less able to transfer what they see on the screen to their own behavior than to transfer what they learn in active interactions with adults (Barr, 2010). The transfer deficit is reduced somewhat for older infants when their memory capacities are taken into account, that is, when content is repeated and verbal cues are added (Barr, 2013). When parents watch videos along with their infants and talk to them about the content, the infants spend more time looking at the screen, learn more from the media, and show greater knowledge of language as toddlers (Linebarger & Vaala, 2010). However, it is not clear that parent coviewing of media provides a better alternative to learning than parent–infant interaction by itself (Courage, 2017).

      Infants learn from contingent interactions with others—and baby videos do not provide contingent stimulation. Infants can, however, can learn from screens when contingent interactions with people are involved (McClure, Chentsova-Dutton, Holochwost, Parrott, & Barr, 2018). For example, 12- to 25-month-olds were presented with on-screen partners who taught novel words, actions, and patterns via real-time FaceTime conversations or prerecorded videos (Myers, LeWitt, Gallo, & Maselli, 2017). All of the infants were attentive and responsive, but only children in the FaceTime group responded to the partner in a time-synchronized manner. One week later, the children in the FaceTime group preferred and recognized their partner, learned more novel patterns, and (among the older infants) learned more novel words. Although baby media will not transform babies into geniuses or even guarantee learning, babies can learn from real-time interactions with others—in person or on screen.

      What Do You Think?

      1 Imagine that you are a parent. What are some of the reasons why you might allow your young child to play with your mobile phone or tablet? In your view, what are some disadvantages to screen use by infants and toddlers?

      2 How might you teach infants and toddlers how to learn from screens, such as from televisions, cell phones, and tablets?

      Thinking in Context 5.1

      Identify a toy appropriate for an infant in the secondary circular reactions substage (e.g., a loud rattle or jingling set of toy keys).

      1 Compare and contrast how infants in the secondary circular reactions substage and coordination of secondary schemas substage might play with the toy.

      2 How might infants in the tertiary reactions substage play with it?

      3 How might infants’ play match their developing schemes?

      4 Might parent–infant interactions, the home environment, and sociocultural context influence when infants develop object permanence? Why or why not?

      5 Infants around the world delight in playing peekaboo. Compare and contrast how Piaget and core knowledge theorists might account for infants’ attention and interest in the caregiver’s disappearing and reappearing face.

      Information Processing Theory

      Information processing theorists describe cognition as a set of interrelated components that permit people to process information—to notice, take in, manipulate, store, and retrieve it. Newborns are ready to learn and adapt to their world because they are born information processors.

      Organization of the Information Processing System

      According to information processing theory, the mind is composed of three mental stores: sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory. From early infancy through late adulthood, information moves through these three stores, and we use them to manipulate and store information (see Figure 5.5).

      Sensory memory is the first step in getting information into the mind; it holds incoming sensory information in its original form. For example, look at this page, then close your eyes. Did you “see” the page for a fraction of a second after you closed your eyes? That image, or icon, represents your sensory memory. Information fades from sensory memory quickly if it is not processed, even as quickly as fractions of a second. Newborn infants display sensory memory, but it is much shorter in duration than adults’ memory (Cheour et al., 2002).

      A great deal of information is taken in and rapidly moves through sensory memory. Not surprisingly, much of it is discarded. When we direct our attention to information, however, it passes to the next part of the information processing system, working memory.

      Working memory holds and processes information that is being “worked on” in some way. Working memory consists of at least three components: a short-term store, a processing component, and a control mechanism (Baddeley, 2016). Just as your thoughts are constantly changing, so are the contents of working memory. We can hold only so much information in working memory, and we can hold it for only so long. Indeed, a core assumption of the information processing approach is the idea of limited capacity (Bjorklund & Myers, 2015; Oberauer, Farrell, Jarrold, & Lewandowsky, 2016). With development, we get better at retaining information in working memory and use it in more efficient ways.

      Working memory is responsible for manipulating (considering, comprehending), encoding (transforming into a memory), and retrieving (recalling) information. All of your thoughts—that is, all conscious mental activities—occur within working memory. For example, reading this paragraph, remembering assignments, and considering how this material applies to your own experience taps your working memory.

      An important part of working memory is the central executive, a control mechanism or processor that directs the flow of information and regulates cognitive activities such as attention, action, and problem solving (Just & Carpenter, 1992). The central executive determines what is important to attend to, combines new information with information already in working memory, and selects and applies strategies for manipulating the information in order to understand it, make decisions, and solve problems (Baddeley, 2012). Collectively, these cognitive activities are known as executive function.

      As information is manipulated in working memory, it becomes more likely that it will enter long-term memory, the third mental store. Long-term memory is an unlimited store that holds information indefinitely. Information is not manipulated or processed in long-term memory; it is simply stored until it is retrieved to manipulate in working memory (e.g., in remembering events and thinking about them). As we develop, we amass a great deal of information in long-term memory, organize it in increasingly sophisticated ways, and encode and retrieve it more efficiently and with less effort.

      We are born with the ability to take in, store, and manipulate