Baillargeon Flashcards
What is Baillargeons Explanation of Early Infant Abilities
Baillargeon’s Research aimed to contradict Piaget. She Suggested Object Permanence happens at a much earlier age than Piaget Suggested.
She Argued Piaget didnt find it because the infants did not have physical capabilities to search for missing objects.
She devised a technique called Violation Of Expectation.
Define Violation Of Expectations Technique
A Method of conducting research with infants using their surprise as a measure of whether what they see is not what they expect to see. Thus we know what their expectations are.
Define Object Permanence
A child’s understanding that objects that are no longer visible nevertheless continue to exists
Identify The 2 Stages of VoE
Stage One:
Infants are shown a particular event (for example a train on a circular track going through a tunnel) Several times. The first stage of the research allows the infant. To become familiar with the stimulus and stop responding to it.
Stage Two:
The infants are divided into two groups. Half of the sample are shown an expected event that is compatible with what they have seen before. (For example, the train goes through the tunnel and emerges) While the other half are shown and unexpected event. (For example, the train fails to emerge from the tunnel or a different object emerges from the tunnel).
Baillargeon & DeVos (1991) Rolling Carrot Task: Aim
To investigate Infants’ ability to understand object permanence
Baillargeon & DeVos (1991) Rolling Carrot Task: Method
Method Got three and a half month old infants to watch a scenario of either a tall or short carrot sliding along a track. With the centre of the track hidden by a screen which was to be expected as it was not tall enough but the tall carrot also did not appear in the window even though it was clearly tall enough to do so.
Baillargeon & DeVos (1991) Rolling Carrot Task: Results
It was found that infants looked at the tall rather than the short carrot scenario, which suggest they were able to asses the existence, height, and pathway of the carrots when behind the scenes and so were surprised at the non-appearance of the tall carrot in the window
Baillargeon & DeVos (1991) Rolling Carrot Task: Conclusion
This supports the idea of children younger than Piagets claimed having a sense of object permanence as they realise Objects continue to exist even when hidden.
Baillargeon & DeVos (1991) Rolling Carrot Task: A P F C
To investigate Infants’ ability to understand object permanence
Got three and a half month old infants to watch a scenario of either a tall or short carrot sliding along a track. With the centre of the track hidden by a screen which was to be expected as it was not tall enough but the tall carrot also did not appear in the window even though it was clearly tall enough to do so.
It was found that infants looked at the tall rather than the short carrot scenario, which suggest they were able to asses the existence, height, and pathway of the carrots when behind the scenes and so were surprised at the non-appearance of the tall carrot in the window
This supports the idea of children younger than Piagets claimed having a sense of object permanence as they realise Objects continue to exist even when hidden.
Identify The Core Knowledge Theory
Core Knowledge Includes a basic understanding of the physical world, including the properties of objects such as,
*Solidity of object; each object occupies space; Objects cannot pass through each other.
*Continuity of motion; objects move in paths through space an object can only get from A to B by moving on a continues path that starts at A and ends at B.
Core Knowledge Theory: innate ability to understand objects and their physical properties.
Two Possibilities for the acquisition of Core Knowledge Theory
- Innate Fast Learning: Infants born with the capacity to acquire object knowledge very easily
- Innate Object Knowledge: Born with an understanding of the properties of objects.
Define Primary World Knowledge
Primary equipped with mechanism to interpret and learn from experience – physical reasoning system.
They do this through an all or none concept (Primitive, knowledge of objects)
Through experience this is then added to, learning how object interact with each other, that one object can block another.
Evaluate Baillargeon: Piaget Contradiction
This contradicts Piaget’s 4 stages of development, and OP developing at 9 months. It proves Baillargeon’s explanation of infants having innate ability of objects meaning they have understanding of object permanence younger than that.
Evaluate Baillargeon: Nativist Approach
The explanation takes a nativist approach. She believed that abilities are innately driven, (CKT) children are born with the understanding. Baillargeon believed objects permanence developed earlier than Piaget due to basic knowledge. It takes into account no consideration of environmental factors or social interaction which could give a further explanation of the early abilities of young infants. This means the explanation is reductionist.
Evaluate Baillargeon: Sampling Techniques
Baillargeon typically recruited her participants by getting names from a list of recent births in newspapers. This is opportunity sampling. It is easy however less bias and therefore cant be generalised. Her methodology, whilst providing good control by using lab experiments, lacks ecological validity by creating artificial situations.
