Baillargeon's explanation of infant abilities Flashcards
Why did Baillargeon criticise Piagets work on object permanence?
Proposed that the lack of understanding of object permanence was due to them lacking the motor skills to pursue a hidden object or that they are easily distracted.
What is violation of expectation research?
A way of testing object permanence by showing a child an expected and unexpected event. The infants will see objects passing in an out of sight.
What is knowledge of the physical world?
An understanding of how the physical world works.
What was the procedure of Baillargeon and Marcia Graber 1987 study?
Showed 24 babies, aged 5-6 months a short and tall rabbit passing behind a screen with a window.
Habituation (familiarisation)
Expected- tall rabbits ears shown, short rabbit not.
Unexpected- tall rabbit not seen.
What was the results of Baillargeon and Marcia Graber 1987 study?
Babies looked for an average of 33.07 seconds at the unexpected event vs 25.11 at the expected event.
What is containment?
The idea when an object is seen to enter a container it should still be there when its opened.
What is the idea of support?
An object should fall when unsupported but not when on a horizontal surface.
How did Baillargeon test containment and support?
Use a container for containment with an object inside that either still there when opened and closed or disappeared. For support ran a car over the top of a horizontal table and it either dropped of the edge or kept going over the edge.
In both conditions, looked at unexpected event for longer.
What is Baillargeon’s theory around infant physical reasoning?
Proposed infants born with PRS (physical reasoning system).
We are born hardwired with a basic understanding of the physical world and also the ability to learn details easy.
We have a crude understanding of object persistence.
How did Baillargeon say we develop?
In the first few weeks of life babies begin to identify event categories.
Each event category corresponds to one way in which objects interact.
E.G Occlusion, containment etc.
Allows them to learn quicker.
Why might Baillargeon’s research using VOE be more valid than Piagets?
It accounts for the confounding variable of distraction as it only records the amount of time spent looking at both events (to see which they looked at for longer).
Piaget assumed when a child looked away that meant they no longer think it exists.
What might be an issue with the way Baillargeon measured VOE?
Measured time in seconds spent looking at expected/unexpected event.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that if they look at unexpected event for longer they understand its “impossible” interpretation.
Support for Baillargeon?
Kaufman (2003) studies neural correlates during occlusion studies to study the object tracking behaviour or infants and found increased activity in the right temporal region during the impossible event compared to the possible event.
Limitation for Baillargeon?
Researchers who have reviewed VOE studies suggest that results show attraction to novel/engaging stimuli (Cashon and Cohen 2000) and that infants observe ‘difference’ rather than show ‘surprise’ (Schöner and Thelen 2004)
