Baillargeon's explanation of early infant abilities Flashcards

1
Q

What did Renee Baillargeon focus on?

A

Focused on research into understanding exactly how well-developed cognitive abilities are in infancy.

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2
Q

Who is Renee Baillargeon and what does she believe?

A

Critic of Piaget - challenges his idea of sensorimotor stage.
She believes that young babies have a well-developed understanding of the physical world.

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3
Q

What is the knowledge of the physical world?

A

Refers to our understanding of how the physical world works eg. object permanence.

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4
Q

What’s the difference between Piaget and Baillargeon?

A

Piaget believed that the sensorimotor stage was from birth to 2 years.
Babies younger than 8 months had primitive understanding of the physical world around them.
Lacked object permanence.
He believed this because his research demonstrated that babies would lose interest once an object was out of sight.
Baillargeon disagreed.
Young babies has a better understanding of the physical world than Piaget gave them credit for.
Explained the lack of object permanence differently.
Maybe that babies lacked motor skills to find a hidden object, or they have simply lost interest (easily distractible).

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5
Q

What is the violation of expectation (VOE)?

A

Method developed by Baillargeon to investigate infants’ knowledge of the world.
Uses idea- if children understand how the physical world operates then they will expect certain things to happen.
If these do not occur and children show surprise, then it suggests that they have an intact knowledge of that aspect of the world.
Typically, children will be shown 2 test events.
1.A expected event (consistent with expectations)
2. An unexpected event (violates expectations)

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6
Q

What did Baillargeon do?

A

24 babies (5-6 months old).
Showed them a tall and a short bunny passing behind a screen with a window (Familiarisation event)
There were 2 test conditions- expected and unexpected event.
Expected event- the short bunny passes behind the screen with a window, but is no longer visible until it passes out the other side.
Unexpected event- the tall bunny passes behind the screen with a window, and again it’s not visible until it passes out the other side.
A child with object permanence should show surprise at the unexpected event.

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7
Q

What did Baillargeon find?

A

The babies looked on average 33 seconds at the unexpected event compared to 25 seconds at the expected event.
This was interpreted as meaning the babies were surprised at the unexpected event- for them to be surprised meant they understood they should have been able to see the tall bunny passing through the screen via the window. Thus demonstrating object permanence.

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8
Q

What is the theory of infant physical reasoning?

A

Humans are all born with physical reasoning system.
Hardwired with basic understanding of physical world.
We have a primitive awareness of the physical properties of the world, and these become more sophisticated as we learn from experience. This differs from Piaget who stated that we don’t have any innate mechanisms that help with this.

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9
Q

What is a strength of Baillargeon’s research?

A
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10
Q

What are the limitations of Baillargeon’s research?

A
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