A phrase sometimes used to describe the mental processes by which children make sense of the world as they change and develop.

See COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT.

Part of the brain at the back near the top of the spinal cord. It is thought to be involved in maintaining muscle tone and coordinating movement and balance.

The branch of PSYCHOLOGY that deals with COGNITION, particularly the processes of PERCEPTION, learning, MEMORY and thinking.

A series of items invented by Alfred Binet (1857-1911) for predicting a child’s performance in school. The items were arranged in order of difficulty and standardised by age.

The study of the growing child physiologically, mentally, emotionally and socially. The most important aspect of DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY.

A psychological state resulting from the injection of adrenalin. The bodily changes that occur resemble those associated with an emotional experience, but the subject reports feeling that they should be having an emotional experience without actually doing so, i.e. they feel tense or excited without knowing why.

In brain physiology, the level of electrical activity in the brain.

Each of our eyes (because they are a few centimetres apart) receives a slightly different picture when looking at the same object. This disparity helps us perceive the dimension of depth.

See DEPTH PERCEPTION and VISUAL CLIFF.

A BEHAVIOUR disorder characterised by immaturity and a general inability to cope with adult life. It often takes the form of social problems such as alcoholism, drug addiction or criminal behaviour. Some psychologists would place an ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY in this category.

A simple form of learning by association, produced by an experimental procedure that PAVLOV developed in the early years of the twentieth century. It involves the repeated pairing of a CONDITIONED STIMULUS (e.g. sound of a bell) with an UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS (e.g. food) thereby eliciting a CONDITIONED RESPONSE (salivation) to the conditioned stimulus (bell) which is similar to the UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE (salivation) previously elicited by the unconditioned stimulus (food).