41
Early childhood is a time of pretending, blending fact and fiction, and learning to think of the world using language. As young children move away from needing to touch, feel, and hear about the world toward learning some basic principles about how the world works, they hold some pretty interesting initial ideas. For example, how many of you are afraid that you are going to go down the bathtub drain? Hopefully, none of you do! But a child of three might really worry about this as they sit at the front of the bathtub. A child might protest if told that something will happen “tomorrow” but be willing to accept an explanation that an event will occur “today after we sleep.” Or the young child may ask, “How long are we staying? From here to here?” while pointing to two points on a table. Concepts such as tomorrow, time, size and distance are not easy to grasp at this young age. Understanding size, time, distance, fact and fiction are all tasks that are part of cognitive development in the preschool years.
Preoperational Intelligence
Piaget’s stage that coincides with early childhood is the preoperational stage. The word operational means logical, so these children were thought to be illogical. However, they were learning to use language or to think of the world symbolically. Let’s examine some Piaget’s assertions about children’s cognitive abilities at this age.
Pretend Play: Pretending is a favorite activity at this time. A toy has qualities beyond the way it was designed to function and can now be used to stand for a character or object unlike anything originally intended. A teddy bear, for example, can be a baby or the queen of a faraway land!
Piaget believed that children’s pretend play helped children solidify new schemes they were developing cognitively. This play, then, reflected changes in their conceptions or thoughts. However, children also learn as they pretend and experiment. Their play does not simply represent what they have learned (Berk, 2007).
Egocentrism: Egocentrism in early childhood refers to the tendency of young children to think that everyone sees things in the same way as the child. Piaget’s classic experiment on egocentrism involved showing children a 3 dimensional model of a mountain and asking them to describe what a doll that is looking at the mountain from a different angle might see. Children tend to choose a picture that represents their own, rather than the doll’s view. However, when children are speaking to others, they tend to use different sentence structures and vocabulary when addressing a younger child or an older adult. This indicates some awareness of the views of others.
Syncretism: Syncretism refers to a tendency to think that if two events occur simultaneously, one caused the other. I remember my daughter asking that if she put on her bathing suit whether it would turn to summer!
Animism: Animism refers to attributing life-like qualities to objects. The cup is alive, the chair that falls down and hits the child’s ankle is mean, and the toys need to stay home because they are tired. Watch this segment in which the actor Robin Williams sings a song to teach children the difference between what is alive and what is not alive. (Interesting, the puppets in the background sing and dance the phrase “it’s not alive”. This might be a bit confusing to the viewers!). Cartoons frequently show objects that appear alive and take on lifelike qualities. Young children do seem to think that objects that move may be alive but after age 3, they seldom refer to objects as being alive (Berk, 2007).
Classification Errors: Preoperational children have difficulty understanding that an object can be classified in more than one way. For example, if shown three white buttons and four black buttons and asked whether there are more black buttons or buttons, the child is likely to respond that there are more black buttons. As the child’s vocabulary improves and more schemes are developed, the ability to classify objects improves.
Conservation Errors: Conservation refers to the ability to recognize that moving or rearranging matter does not change the quantity. Imagine a 2 year old and a 4 year old eating lunch. The 4 year old has a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He notices, however, that his younger sister’s sandwich is cut in half and protests, “She has more!” Watch the following examples of conversation errors of quantity and volume:
Theory of Mind
Imagine showing a child of three a bandaid box and asking the child what is in the box. Chances are, the child will reply, “bandaids.” Now imagine that you open the box and pour out crayons. If you ask the child what they thought was in the box before it was opened, they may respond, “crayons”. If you ask what a friend would have thought was in the box, the response would still be “crayons”. Why? Before about 4 years of age, a child does not recognize that the mind can hold ideas that are not accurate. So this 3 year old changes his or her response once shown that the box contains crayons. The theory of mind is the understanding that the mind can be tricked or that the mind is not always accurate. At around age 4, the child would reply, “Crayons” and understand that thoughts and realities do not always match.
This awareness of the existence of mind is part of social intelligence or the ability to recognize that others can think differently about situations. It helps us to be self-conscious or aware that others can think of us in different ways and it helps us to be able to be understanding or empathic toward others. This mind reading ability helps us to anticipate and predict the actions of others (even though these predictions are sometimes inaccurate).
The awareness of the mental states of others is important for communication and social skills. A child who demonstrates this skill is able to anticipate the needs of others. This video describes a research in which theory of mind is linked to popularity.
Language Development
Vocabulary growth: A child’s vocabulary expands between the ages of 2 to 6 from about 200 words to over 10,000 words through a process called fast-mapping. Words are easily learned by making connections between new words and concepts already known. The parts of speech that are learned depend on the language and what is emphasized. Children speaking verb-friendly languages such as Chinese and Japanese as well as those speaking English tend to learn nouns more readily. But those learning less verb-friendly languages such as English seem to need assistance in grammar to master the use of verbs (Imai, et als, 2008). Children are also very creative in creating their own words to use as labels such as a “take-care-of” when referring to John, the character on the cartoon, Garfield, who takes care of the cat.
Literal meanings: Children can repeat words and phrases after having heard them only once or twice. But they do not always understand the meaning of the words or phrases. This is especially true of expressions or figures of speech which are taken literally. For example, two preschool aged girls began to laugh loudly while listening to a tape-recording of Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” when the narrator reports, “Prince Phillip lost his head!” They image his head popping off and rolling down the hill as he runs and searches for it. Or a classroom full of preschoolers hears the teacher say, “Wow! That was a piece of cake!” The children began asking “Cake? Where is my cake? I want cake!”
Overregularization: Children learn rules of grammar as they learn language but may apply these rules inappropriately at first. For instance, a child learns to ad “ed” to the end of a word to indicate past tense. Then form a sentence such as “I goed there. I doed that.” This is typical at ages 2 and 3. They will soon learn new words such as went and did to be used in those situations.
The Impact of Training: Remember Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development? Children can be assisted in learning language by others who listen attentively, model more accurate pronunciations and encourage elaboration. The child exclaims, “I’m goed there!” and the adult responds, “You went there? Say, ‘I went there.’ Where did you go?” Children may be ripe for language as Chomsky suggests, but active participation in helping them learn is important for language development as well. The process of scaffolding is one in which the guide provides needed assistance to the child as a new skill is learned.
Private Speech: Do you ever talk to yourself? Why? Chances are, this occurs when you are struggling with a problem, trying to remember something, or feel very emotional about a situation. Children talk to themselves too. Piaget interpreted this as egocentric speech or a practice engaged in because of a child’s inability to seeing things from others points of views. Vygotsky, however, believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts. As children learn to think in words, they do so aloud before eventually closing their lips and engaging in private speech or inner speech. Thinking out loud eventually becomes thought accompanied by internal speech and talking to oneself becomes a practice only engaged in when we are trying to learn something or remember something, etc. This inner speech is not as elaborate as the speech we use when communicating with others (Vygotsky, 1962).


69 References
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Revised 4th edition). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Blair, J., Mitchell, D., & Blair, K. (2005). The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Chua-Eoan, H. (1979). Crimes of the Century: The Top 25. Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/2007/crimes/13.html
Hare, R. D. (1993). Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. Spring Street, New York: The Guilford Press.
Lack, C. (2010). Personality Disorders. Retrieved from http://caleblack.com/psy4753.html.
Larsen, R. J., & Buss, D. M. (2010). Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Lilienfeld, S., & Arkowitz, H. (2007). Scientific American. What “Psychopath” Means. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-psychopath-means
Lykken, D. T. (1995). The Antisocial Personalities. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers.


271 15.2 Elements of the Marketing Plan
Learning Objectives
- Describe the purpose of a marketing plan
- Explain why each key element of the marketing plan is important to the marketing team’s successful implementation of the overall plan
- Identify the key elements of the marketing plan
A lot of work goes into developing a marketing plan. But once it’s completed, it provides a detailed roadmap of not only where you’re heading, but also why and how to get there. By
putting in significant effort up front to create a good plan, you’ll find that the “doing” part is much simpler, better focused, better organized. Of course, a good plan also increases your likelihood of marketing success.
Success? Well, that makes you look good.
Learning Activities
- Reading: Elements of the Marketing Plan
- Self Check: Elements of the Marketing Plan


90 Hearing
[latexpage]
Learning Objectives
- Define hearing, pitch, loudness, timbre, note, tone, phon, ultrasound, and infrasound.
- Compare loudness to frequency and intensity of a sound.
- Identify structures of the inner ear and explain how they relate to sound perception.
The human ear has a tremendous range and sensitivity. It can give us a wealth of simple information—such as pitch, loudness, and direction. And from its input we can detect musical quality and nuances of voiced emotion. How is our hearing related to the physical qualities of sound, and how does the hearing mechanism work?
Hearing is the perception of sound. (Perception is commonly defined to be awareness through the senses, a typically circular definition of higher-level processes in living organisms.) Normal human hearing encompasses frequencies from 20 to 20,000 Hz, an impressive range. Sounds below 20 Hz are called infrasound, whereas those above 20,000 Hz are ultrasound. Neither is perceived by the ear, although infrasound can sometimes be felt as vibrations. When we do hear low-frequency vibrations, such as the sounds of a diving board, we hear the individual vibrations only because there are higher-frequency sounds in each. Other animals have hearing ranges different from that of humans. Dogs can hear sounds as high as 30,000 Hz, whereas bats and dolphins can hear up to 100,000-Hz sounds. You may have noticed that dogs respond to the sound of a dog whistle which produces sound out of the range of human hearing. Elephants are known to respond to frequencies below 20 Hz.
The perception of frequency is called pitch. Most of us have excellent relative pitch, which means that we can tell whether one sound has a different frequency from another. Typically, we can discriminate between two sounds if their frequencies differ by 0.3% or more. For example, 500.0 and 501.5 Hz are noticeably different. Pitch perception is directly related to frequency and is not greatly affected by other physical quantities such as intensity. Musical notes are particular sounds that can be produced by most instruments and in Western music have particular names. Combinations of notes constitute music. Some people can identify musical notes, such as A-sharp, C, or E-flat, just by listening to them. This uncommon ability is called perfect pitch.
The ear is remarkably sensitive to low-intensity sounds. The lowest audible intensity or threshold is about \({\text{10}}^{-\text{12}}\phantom{\rule{0.25em}{0ex}}{\text{W/m}}^{2}\) or 0 dB. Sounds as much as \({\text{10}}^{\text{12}}\) more intense can be briefly tolerated. Very few measuring devices are capable of observations over a range of a trillion. The perception of intensity is called loudness. At a given frequency, it is possible to discern differences of about 1 dB, and a change of 3 dB is easily noticed. But loudness is not related to intensity alone. Frequency has a major effect on how loud a sound seems. The ear has its maximum sensitivity to frequencies in the range of 2000 to 5000 Hz, so that sounds in this range are perceived as being louder than, say, those at 500 or 10,000 Hz, even when they all have the same intensity. Sounds near the high- and low-frequency extremes of the hearing range seem even less loud, because the ear is even less sensitive at those frequencies. (Figure) gives the dependence of certain human hearing perceptions on physical quantities.
| Perception | Physical quantity |
|---|---|
| Pitch | Frequency |
| Loudness | Intensity and Frequency |
| Timbre | Number and relative intensity of multiple frequencies. Subtle craftsmanship leads to non-linear effects and more detail. |
| Note | Basic unit of music with specific names, combined to generate tunes |
| Tone | Number and relative intensity of multiple frequencies. |
When a violin plays middle C, there is no mistaking it for a piano playing the same note. The reason is that each instrument produces a distinctive set of frequencies and intensities. We call our perception of these combinations of frequencies and intensities tone quality, or more commonly the timbre of the sound. It is more difficult to correlate timbre perception to physical quantities than it is for loudness or pitch perception. Timbre is more subjective. Terms such as dull, brilliant, warm, cold, pure, and rich are employed to describe the timbre of a sound. So the consideration of timbre takes us into the realm of perceptual psychology, where higher-level processes in the brain are dominant. This is true for other perceptions of sound, such as music and noise. We shall not delve further into them; rather, we will concentrate on the question of loudness perception.
A unit called a phon is used to express loudness numerically. Phons differ from decibels because the phon is a unit of loudness perception, whereas the decibel is a unit of physical intensity. (Figure) shows the relationship of loudness to intensity (or intensity level) and frequency for persons with normal hearing. The curved lines are equal-loudness curves. Each curve is labeled with its loudness in phons. Any sound along a given curve will be perceived as equally loud by the average person. The curves were determined by having large numbers of people compare the loudness of sounds at different frequencies and sound intensity levels. At a frequency of 1000 Hz, phons are taken to be numerically equal to decibels. The following example helps illustrate how to use the graph:
(a) What is the loudness in phons of a 100-Hz sound that has an intensity level of 80 dB? (b) What is the intensity level in decibels of a 4000-Hz sound having a loudness of 70 phons? (c) At what intensity level will an 8000-Hz sound have the same loudness as a 200-Hz sound at 60 dB?
Strategy for (a)
The graph in (Figure) should be referenced in order to solve this example. To find the loudness of a given sound, you must know its frequency and intensity level and locate that point on the square grid, then interpolate between loudness curves to get the loudness in phons.
Solution for (a)
(1) Identify knowns:
- The square grid of the graph relating phons and decibels is a plot of intensity level versus frequency—both physical quantities.
- 100 Hz at 80 dB lies halfway between the curves marked 70 and 80 phons.
(2) Find the loudness: 75 phons.
Strategy for (b)
The graph in (Figure) should be referenced in order to solve this example. To find the intensity level of a sound, you must have its frequency and loudness. Once that point is located, the intensity level can be determined from the vertical axis.
Solution for (b)
(1) Identify knowns:
- Values are given to be 4000 Hz at 70 phons.
(2) Follow the 70-phon curve until it reaches 4000 Hz. At that point, it is below the 70 dB line at about 67 dB.
(3) Find the intensity level:
67 dB
Strategy for (c)
The graph in (Figure) should be referenced in order to solve this example.
Solution for (c)
(1) Locate the point for a 200 Hz and 60 dB sound.
(2) Find the loudness: This point lies just slightly above the 50-phon curve, and so its loudness is 51 phons.
(3) Look for the 51-phon level is at 8000 Hz: 63 dB.
Discussion
These answers, like all information extracted from (Figure), have uncertainties of several phons or several decibels, partly due to difficulties in interpolation, but mostly related to uncertainties in the equal-loudness curves.
Further examination of the graph in (Figure) reveals some interesting facts about human hearing. First, sounds below the 0-phon curve are not perceived by most people. So, for example, a 60 Hz sound at 40 dB is inaudible. The 0-phon curve represents the threshold of normal hearing. We can hear some sounds at intensity levels below 0 dB. For example, a 3-dB, 5000-Hz sound is audible, because it lies above the 0-phon curve. The loudness curves all have dips in them between about 2000 and 5000 Hz. These dips mean the ear is most sensitive to frequencies in that range. For example, a 15-dB sound at 4000 Hz has a loudness of 20 phons, the same as a 20-dB sound at 1000 Hz. The curves rise at both extremes of the frequency range, indicating that a greater-intensity level sound is needed at those frequencies to be perceived to be as loud as at middle frequencies. For example, a sound at 10,000 Hz must have an intensity level of 30 dB to seem as loud as a 20 dB sound at 1000 Hz. Sounds above 120 phons are painful as well as damaging.
We do not often utilize our full range of hearing. This is particularly true for frequencies above 8000 Hz, which are rare in the environment and are unnecessary for understanding conversation or appreciating music. In fact, people who have lost the ability to hear such high frequencies are usually unaware of their loss until tested. The shaded region in (Figure) is the frequency and intensity region where most conversational sounds fall. The curved lines indicate what effect hearing losses of 40 and 60 phons will have. A 40-phon hearing loss at all frequencies still allows a person to understand conversation, although it will seem very quiet. A person with a 60-phon loss at all frequencies will hear only the lowest frequencies and will not be able to understand speech unless it is much louder than normal. Even so, speech may seem indistinct, because higher frequencies are not as well perceived. The conversational speech region also has a gender component, in that female voices are usually characterized by higher frequencies. So the person with a 60-phon hearing impediment might have difficulty understanding the normal conversation of a woman.
Hearing tests are performed over a range of frequencies, usually from 250 to 8000 Hz, and can be displayed graphically in an audiogram like that in (Figure). The hearing threshold is measured in dB relative to the normal threshold, so that normal hearing registers as 0 dB at all frequencies. Hearing loss caused by noise typically shows a dip near the 4000 Hz frequency, irrespective of the frequency that caused the loss and often affects both ears. The most common form of hearing loss comes with age and is called presbycusis—literally elder ear. Such loss is increasingly severe at higher frequencies, and interferes with music appreciation and speech recognition.
The hearing mechanism involves some interesting physics. The sound wave that impinges upon our ear is a pressure wave. The ear is a transducer that converts sound waves into electrical nerve impulses in a manner much more sophisticated than, but analogous to, a microphone. (Figure) shows the gross anatomy of the ear with its division into three parts: the outer ear or ear canal; the middle ear, which runs from the eardrum to the cochlea; and the inner ear, which is the cochlea itself. The body part normally referred to as the ear is technically called the pinna.
The outer ear, or ear canal, carries sound to the recessed protected eardrum. The air column in the ear canal resonates and is partially responsible for the sensitivity of the ear to sounds in the 2000 to 5000 Hz range. The middle ear converts sound into mechanical vibrations and applies these vibrations to the cochlea. The lever system of the middle ear takes the force exerted on the eardrum by sound pressure variations, amplifies it and transmits it to the inner ear via the oval window, creating pressure waves in the cochlea approximately 40 times greater than those impinging on the eardrum. (See (Figure).) Two muscles in the middle ear (not shown) protect the inner ear from very intense sounds. They react to intense sound in a few milliseconds and reduce the force transmitted to the cochlea. This protective reaction can also be triggered by your own voice, so that humming while shooting a gun, for example, can reduce noise damage.
(Figure) shows the middle and inner ear in greater detail. Pressure waves moving through the cochlea cause the tectorial membrane to vibrate, rubbing cilia (called hair cells), which stimulate nerves that send electrical signals to the brain. The membrane resonates at different positions for different frequencies, with high frequencies stimulating nerves at the near end and low frequencies at the far end. The complete operation of the cochlea is still not understood, but several mechanisms for sending information to the brain are known to be involved. For sounds below about 1000 Hz, the nerves send signals at the same frequency as the sound. For frequencies greater than about 1000 Hz, the nerves signal frequency by position. There is a structure to the cilia, and there are connections between nerve cells that perform signal processing before information is sent to the brain. Intensity information is partly indicated by the number of nerve signals and by volleys of signals. The brain processes the cochlear nerve signals to provide additional information such as source direction (based on time and intensity comparisons of sounds from both ears). Higher-level processing produces many nuances, such as music appreciation.
Hearing losses can occur because of problems in the middle or inner ear. Conductive losses in the middle ear can be partially overcome by sending sound vibrations to the cochlea through the skull. Hearing aids for this purpose usually press against the bone behind the ear, rather than simply amplifying the sound sent into the ear canal as many hearing aids do. Damage to the nerves in the cochlea is not repairable, but amplification can partially compensate. There is a risk that amplification will produce further damage. Another common failure in the cochlea is damage or loss of the cilia but with nerves remaining functional. Cochlear implants that stimulate the nerves directly are now available and widely accepted. Over 100,000 implants are in use, in about equal numbers of adults and children.
The cochlear implant was pioneered in Melbourne, Australia, by Graeme Clark in the 1970s for his deaf father. The implant consists of three external components and two internal components. The external components are a microphone for picking up sound and converting it into an electrical signal, a speech processor to select certain frequencies and a transmitter to transfer the signal to the internal components through electromagnetic induction. The internal components consist of a receiver/transmitter secured in the bone beneath the skin, which converts the signals into electric impulses and sends them through an internal cable to the cochlea and an array of about 24 electrodes wound through the cochlea. These electrodes in turn send the impulses directly into the brain. The electrodes basically emulate the cilia.
Are ultrasound and infrasound imperceptible to all hearing organisms? Explain your answer.
No, the range of perceptible sound is based in the range of human hearing. Many other organisms perceive either infrasound or ultrasound.
Section Summary
- The range of audible frequencies is 20 to 20,000 Hz.
- Those sounds above 20,000 Hz are ultrasound, whereas those below 20 Hz are infrasound.
- The perception of frequency is pitch.
- The perception of intensity is loudness.
- Loudness has units of phons.
Conceptual Questions
Why can a hearing test show that your threshold of hearing is 0 dB at 250 Hz, when (Figure) implies that no one can hear such a frequency at less than 20 dB?
Problems & Exercises
The factor of \({\text{10}}^{-\text{12}}\) in the range of intensities to which the ear can respond, from threshold to that causing damage after brief exposure, is truly remarkable. If you could measure distances over the same range with a single instrument and the smallest distance you could measure was 1 mm, what would the largest be?
The frequencies to which the ear responds vary by a factor of \({\text{10}}^{\text{3}}\). Suppose the speedometer on your car measured speeds differing by the same factor of \({\text{10}}^{\text{3}}\), and the greatest speed it reads is 90.0 mi/h. What would be the slowest nonzero speed it could read?
What are the closest frequencies to 500 Hz that an average person can clearly distinguish as being different in frequency from 500 Hz? The sounds are not present simultaneously.
498.5 or 501.5 Hz
Can the average person tell that a 2002-Hz sound has a different frequency than a 1999-Hz sound without playing them simultaneously?
If your radio is producing an average sound intensity level of 85 dB, what is the next lowest sound intensity level that is clearly less intense?
82 dB
Can you tell that your roommate turned up the sound on the TV if its average sound intensity level goes from 70 to 73 dB?
Based on the graph in (Figure), what is the threshold of hearing in decibels for frequencies of 60, 400, 1000, 4000, and 15,000 Hz? Note that many AC electrical appliances produce 60 Hz, music is commonly 400 Hz, a reference frequency is 1000 Hz, your maximum sensitivity is near 4000 Hz, and many older TVs produce a 15,750 Hz whine.
approximately 48, 9, 0, –7, and 20 dB, respectively
What sound intensity levels must sounds of frequencies 60, 3000, and 8000 Hz have in order to have the same loudness as a 40-dB sound of frequency 1000 Hz (that is, to have a loudness of 40 phons)?
What is the approximate sound intensity level in decibels of a 600-Hz tone if it has a loudness of 20 phons? If it has a loudness of 70 phons?
(a) 23 dB
(b) 70 dB
(a) What are the loudnesses in phons of sounds having frequencies of 200, 1000, 5000, and 10,000 Hz, if they are all at the same 60.0-dB sound intensity level? (b) If they are all at 110 dB? (c) If they are all at 20.0 dB?
Suppose a person has a 50-dB hearing loss at all frequencies. By how many factors of 10 will low-intensity sounds need to be amplified to seem normal to this person? Note that smaller amplification is appropriate for more intense sounds to avoid further hearing damage.
Five factors of 10
If a woman needs an amplification of \(5\text{.}\text{0}×{\text{10}}^{\text{12}}\) times the threshold intensity to enable her to hear at all frequencies, what is her overall hearing loss in dB? Note that smaller amplification is appropriate for more intense sounds to avoid further damage to her hearing from levels above 90 dB.
(a) What is the intensity in watts per meter squared of a just barely audible 200-Hz sound? (b) What is the intensity in watts per meter squared of a barely audible 4000-Hz sound?
(a) \(2×{\text{10}}^{-\text{10}}\phantom{\rule{0.25em}{0ex}}{\text{W/m}}^{2}\)
(b) \(2×{\text{10}}^{-\text{13}}\phantom{\rule{0.25em}{0ex}}{\text{W/m}}^{2}\)
(a) Find the intensity in watts per meter squared of a 60.0-Hz sound having a loudness of 60 phons. (b) Find the intensity in watts per meter squared of a 10,000-Hz sound having a loudness of 60 phons.
A person has a hearing threshold 10 dB above normal at 100 Hz and 50 dB above normal at 4000 Hz. How much more intense must a 100-Hz tone be than a 4000-Hz tone if they are both barely audible to this person?
2.5
A child has a hearing loss of 60 dB near 5000 Hz, due to noise exposure, and normal hearing elsewhere. How much more intense is a 5000-Hz tone than a 400-Hz tone if they are both barely audible to the child?
What is the ratio of intensities of two sounds of identical frequency if the first is just barely discernible as louder to a person than the second?
1.26
Glossary
- loudness
- the perception of sound intensity
- timbre
- number and relative intensity of multiple sound frequencies
- note
- basic unit of music with specific names, combined to generate tunes
- tone
- number and relative intensity of multiple sound frequencies
- phon
- the numerical unit of loudness
- ultrasound
- sounds above 20,000 Hz
- infrasound
- sounds below 20 Hz


24 OER, Equity, and Implicit Creative Redlining
Rajiv S. Jhangiani
The open education movement wants to be a force for equity. The argument is straightforward and powerful: Widen access to educational resources and those who disproportionately suffer at the hands of the exploitative business models of commercial publishers will disproportionately benefit, in both economic and educational terms. As someone who has personally benefited from generous and life-changing sponsorship of access to a high quality education, this argument is not simply theoretical for me. It is my lived experience. This is why I will never stop pushing for nor understate the importance of widening access to education. But if the open education movement holds the goal of equity as dearly as I believe we do, we need to ensure that we do not restrict our definition of equity to only those who will reuse the resources. For if we ignore the question of equity as it applied to educators who create, revise, and remix OER, we risk perpetrating harm with the best of intentions.
In my capacity as an administrator supporting open education at a public post-secondary institution with an open access mandate, I am vehement about the need to adequately support those of my colleagues who wish to engage in open educational practices. And by support, I mean through sufficient time, adequate funding, required training, and earned recognition. While this position may be construed as pragmatic or instrumental, for me it strikes at the heart of addressing equity. For if the movement relies on voluntary academic labour or severely under-compensated academic labour to create, peer-review, and contextualize OER, we are in effect perpetrating an implicit form of redlining1, one that reserves the capacity to create or adapt OER for those who already enjoy positions of privilege, such as the tenured or those who do not need the income. In such an eventuality, despite the best of intentions, the ideologies (including biases and prejudices) associated with those positions of privilege become reflected and over-represented in the available OER. And while I often describe how powerful it can be to exercise the permission to revise OER by simply changing the names that appear within a text’s examples so that they reflect the diversity of the classroom, that we have to do this at all is a subtle symptom of the types of exclusivity that can exist in OER—and something we need to work against.
Make no mistake—in highlighting this problem, I am not pitting the democratization of knowledge creation against equitable access to education. Rather, I am highlighting that access to knowledge creation ought to be equitable as well. As has been noted before, diversity is a fact but inclusion is a choice. So this is a call for open education projects, funders, and universities to become aware of the inadvertent implications of inadequately supporting OER creators and adaptors as well as to be attentive to who are given the opportunity and support to create and adapt OER. Supporting and nurturing stewards at a grassroots level and supporting the building of community across such stewards helps make open education both more sustainable and more equitable.
One of the things I love about the open education movement is that its values are those that educators largely already hold. This is why you find that even the decision of an academic department to standardize an assigned commercial textbook is usually driven by a desire to negotiate a lower cost for students and/or to avoid having students who need to re-take a course having to buy a second book. This also means that the seeds for a grassroots community have already been planted. And while the image of grass growing out through cracks in concrete may be used to signify resilience and drive, I would much rather ensure that we deliberately cultivate more fertile ground.
Notes
1. For related concepts see Chris Gilliard’s writing on digital redlining and Safiya Noble’s writing on technological redlining.
About the Author
Rajiv S. Jhangiani is the Acting Vice Provost, Teaching & Learning & Associate Vice Provost, Open Education at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia, Canada. The architect of Canada’s first Zero Textbook Cost degrees, Rajiv’s research and practice focuses on open educational practices, student-centered pedagogies, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Rajiv is a co-founder of the Open Pedagogy Notebook and serves on the BC Open Education Advisory Committee. A co-author of three open textbooks in Psychology, he co-edited Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science. You can find him online @thatpsychprof or thatpsychprof.com
Other works:
Jhangiani, R. S. (2019). Delivering on the promise of open educational resources: Pitfalls and strategies. In K. Zhang, C. J. Bonk, T. C. Reeves, & T. H. Reynolds (Eds.), MOOCs and Open Education Across Emerging Economies: Challenges, Successes, and Opportunities. New York: Taylor & Francis. [OA Author accepted manuscript]
Attribution


Reflections on ableism and prompts to help you notice exclusion
Julianna Rowsell
We aim to break the cycle of exclusion with intentional inclusion.
Here are a few core ways to help to achieve this:
- Get comfortable with not knowing everything
- Identify pain points and how we might address them in our workflows or ways of working
- Reduce the problem space by focusing and activating goals forward
We have as many opportunities as we will allow ourselves to get better at being intentional about accessibility and inclusivity. We do not have to do it all today, or tomorrow and we can make mistakes and fail. Its what we do afterwards that is critical to culture change and outcomes.
Mindsets
Mindsets are a way to understand people’s attitudes, behaviours and motivations based on different variables. Mindsets change depending on the context.
Embrace curious mindset
Approach the unknown with curiosity rather than fear. The wildest Q can create the biggest opportunities. Embrace the phrase: “What if?”
Consider multiple perspectives
Consider people, teams, co-workers, stakeholders and the people who use our services. Inclusive Design demands that we use the diversity to challenge what is possible. Shift perspectives.
Prompt and experiment
The road to success and change is paved with small experiments. Recognize that struggle and embrace ambiguity.
Fairness & Inclusion
Treat people equitably.
- Have you treated people unfairly based on something they cannot change?
- How does ableism perpetuate bias or stigma?
Agency & Autonomy
Support and respect self-determination.
- What decisions have you made that divert power in a relationship?
- Do you value peoples time and energy?
- Can people participate or engage in the ways that they need to?
Openness & Transparency
Encourage openness and reflection.
- What do you need to know to understand how decisions are being made?
- How might you provide open channels of communication?
- When do you share information with people?
Respect & Dignity
Create interactions and expectations that are honest and consider human needs.
- Is your relationship with the person open, honest and transparent?
- How might you have reacted differently with other people?
- Do you value the persons time and energy?
Accountability & Governance
Take responsibility for how action and inaction effects human experiences and the implications that our decisions have on others.
- Are you willing to take ownership of your decisions?
- Do you see beyond the immediate repercussions when dealing with people?
- Are you willing to try to undo harm from your actions?
Growth
We can all learn and become better versions of ourselves.
- How are you encouraging questioning and unlearning?
- How are you encouraging self reflection?
- What things give you pause when you see overt and covert ableism in practice?
Removing or changing systems that uphold oppression
Aim to ask yourself and those around you powerful questions.
Provoke thinking
What’s important about that for you?
Shift perspective
How might this look from our user’s perspective?
Check assumptions
What assumptions are we making?
Challenge beliefs
How else could this situation be interpreted?
Identify and share back
Noticing and reflecting through the process allows designers to redesign themselves to be more equity-centered. Practicing self-awareness of one’s own identity, values, emotions, biases, assumptions and situatedness.
We are able to make more authentic connections between who we are and who they’re designing with. We can co-create and co-construct a new paradigm of design, one that is diverse, inclusive and equitable. Hold space for community to reflect, express and process thoughts and emotions. Balance quick action with thoughtful reflection.
Feedback
Disabled Futures and Ableism (short google form)


7.4: Introducing to the Foundations
The domain of social-emotional development encompasses three areas or strands:
- self
- social interaction
- relationships[1]
Supporting Children’s Developing Self
Early learning deeply engages the self. Most preschool children approach learning opportunities with enthusiasm and self-confidence, excited by the prospect of new discovery. Their successes (and occasional failures) shape their sense of what they can do and sometimes drive their efforts to acquire new skills. Their achievements and occasional disappointments also provoke the responses of others—adults and peers—that further influence children’s self-concept and self-confidence. Young children value learning for themselves because it is valued by the people who matter to them.
In a preschool program, learning is a social activity. Therefore, preschool children’s success in learning depends on their capacity to understand and participate constructively in the social environment. Early childhood is a period of rapid growth in social and emotional understanding in which the children’s capacity for empathy and caring is also developing. This is also a period of growth in self-regulation as young children are acquiring skills for sustaining their attention, focusing their thinking and problem-solving, managing their behavioral impulses, and controlling their emotions. Even so, lapses in self-regulation are as apparent as young children’s successes, and developmentally appropriate expectations for children’s self-control are essential.
Therefore, a thoughtfully designed preschool curriculum that supports social-emotional development devotes considerable attention to the direct and indirect ways that children’s classroom experiences shape the development of self.
The foundations for Self include those for self-awareness, self-regulation, social and emotional understanding, empathy and caring, and initiative in learning:
Self
1.0 Self-Awareness
| At around 48 months of age | At around 60 months of age |
| 2.1 Describe their physical characteristics, behavior, and abilities positively. | 4.1 Compare their characteristics with those of others and display a growing awareness of their psychological characteristics, such as thoughts and feelings. |
2.0 Self-Regulation
| At around 48 months of age | At around 60 months of age |
| 4.2 Need adult guidance in managing their attention, feelings, and impulses and show some effort at self-control. | 2.1 Regulate their attention, thoughts, feelings, and impulses more consistently, although adult guidance is sometimes necessary. |
3.0 Social and Emotional Understanding
| At around 48 months of age | At around 60 months of age |
| 4.3 Seek to understand people’s feelings and behavior, notice diversity in human characteristics, and are interested in how people are similar and different. | 4.1 Begin to comprehend the mental and psychological reasons people act as they do and how they contribute to differences between people. |
4.0 Empathy and Caring
| At around 48 months of age | At around 60 months of age |
| 4.4 Demonstrate concern for the needs of others and people in distress. | 4.2 Respond to another’s distress and needs with sympathetic caring and are more likely to assist. |
5.0 Initiative in Learning
| At around 48 months of age | At around 60 months of age |
| 4.5 Enjoy learning and are confident in their abilities to make new discoveries although may not persist at solving difficult problems. | 4.3 Take greater initiative in making new discoveries, identifying new solutions, and persisting in trying to figure things out. |
Teachers can support children’s development of the Self with the following:
- Provide ample space, use child-sized shelves and furnishings, and adapt materials to make all learning areas and activities accessible
- Designate learning areas to help children select preferred sites for exploration
- Place active play zones away from quiet areas to better support children in their choices for play
- Make use of adaptive tools and play materials to help the autonomous exploration of children with special needs
- Observe individual children attentively during a variety of activities
- Incorporate artwork and play materials that reflect children’s home cultures
- Describe aloud for children observations of what they do and express as they play, explore, and participate in group activities
- Compare aloud children’s past and present abilities as you observe them
- Give specific feedback to children about their efforts
- Use planned activities and children’s own observations to draw attention to people’s similarities and differences, including preferences and feelings
- Set up opportunities to practice problem solving with children who have not yet developed those skills
- Use appropriately stimulating aesthetic elements such as soothing colors, natural woods and fibers, and soft textures
- Eliminate or reduce background noise to help children attend to what you want them to hear
- Model behavior and attitudes that are warm, respectful, and caring
- Maintain developmentally appropriate expectations for preschool children’s behavior
- Guide and coach children’s behavior
- Prompt and guide desired behavior
- Reinforce children’s good choices and link their actions to positive outcomes
- Provide a consistent but flexible daily routine
- Alternate between active and quiet activities
- Time group experiences to match children’s developing attention spans, social skills, and self-control
- Introduce children to relaxation exercises
- Plan developmentally appropriate transitions
- Play games with rules periodically to help children learn to focus their attention and regulate their impulses in order to achieve a goal
- Observe the levels of social and emotional understanding that children already have
- Label the emotions people express and communicate with children about what may be provoking those feelings
- Discuss characteristics openly and answer their questions about differences, being thoughtful to counter stereotypes by using concrete examples
- Make use of the experiences and emotions of characters in stories
- Acknowledge and express appreciation for children’s empathic responses
- Encourage empathy and caring for the natural world, including plants and animals
- Model curiosity and enthusiasm when you learn new things
- Engage in play and exploration with children instead of simply supervising their activities
- Provide ample time for free exploration, scheduling play and exploration periods of at least one uninterrupted hour at a time
- Help children generate ideas for solving problems they encounter
- Model persistence during challenging tasks; explaining that unsuccessful attempts to do something are not failures, but simply steps toward learning what will work[2]
Pause to Reflect
Vignettes
A child in a wheelchair enters the housekeeping area where three children are pretending to be a family. They have dishes on the table and dolls in the doll bed. The child in the wheelchair moves closer to the table and tries to join the play but cannot get close enough. After a few minutes, one of the children takes some dishes and puts them on the wheelchair tray. The two children play together. Mr. Luke comments, “I like your idea to use Andy’s tray as a table.”
Chloe cries in Ms. Julia’s arms. Ms. Julia pats her back softly and communicates in a soothing manner. “It sounds like that hurt. You can tell Paz you don’t like that. Say, ‘I don’t like that, Paz.’” Chloe tucks her injured arm in toward Ms. Julia’s body, shakes her head slowly side to side, and looks out warily at Paz. Paz stands close with her head lowered. “Chloe is upset because you pinched her arm. It hurt her quite a bit. Is there something you think we could do to help her feel better, Paz?” asks Ms. Julia.
Paz responds softly, “Sorry, Chloe,” and reaches forward to give Chloe a hug.
Chloe whimpers and clings more closely to Ms. Julia. “When a friend is hurt, giving a hug often helps. I guess Chloe isn’t ready for a hug right now. Thank you for trying, Paz. Maybe we can ask her again later.”[3]
Supporting Children’s Social Interaction
Group learning always involves social interaction. The ease and skill with which children interact with adults and peers (in a preschool classroom or family child care program) and the competence with which they assume their roles and responsibilities as group members significantly influence how they learn. The development of these skills in the preschool years is a foundation for children’s capacity to be socially skilled and competent classroom members in the primary grades.
For some children, unfortunately, difficulties in social interaction—because children are timid and inhibited, are aggressive or disruptive, struggle with being cooperative, or have physical or behavioral characteristics that often result in them being excluded—can pose significant obstacles to benefiting from social interactions with adults and peers. For them and for all children, attention to social interaction skills can be a significant contribution to preschool children’s learning in early childhood classrooms.
A thoughtfully designed preschool curriculum that supports social-emotional development devotes considerable attention, therefore, to the direct and indirect ways that classroom experiences shape the growth of children’s social interaction skills. This includes interactions with adults, peers, and in groups as well as cooperation and responsibility.
- The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 1 by the California Department of Education is used with permission ↵
- The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 1 by the California Department of Education is used with permission; The California Preschool Learning Foundations, Volume 1 by the California Department of Education is used with permission ↵
- The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 1 by the California Department of Education is used with permission ↵