baillargeon's explanation of infant abilities

Question 1

early research on knowledge of the physical world

Answer 1

• Piaget believed that babies younger than 8-9 months had a very primitive understanding of the nature of the physical world
• claimed that babies lack knowledge of object permanence, reasoning based off of research showing that babies would lose interest in an object once it was out of sight
• Baillargeon suggested that young babies had a better understanding of the physical world than what Piaget had suggested
• proposed that lack of understanding of object permanence could be explained differently, for example babies might lack the necessary motor skills to pursue a hidden object or they may just lose interest because they are easily distracted

Question 2

violation of expectation research - basis

Answer 2

• Baillargeon needed new technique to explore her belief in babies’ superior abilities
• she developed the VOE (violation of expectation) method, explained as - ‘In a typical experiment, babies see 2 test events - an expected event, which is consistent with the expectation examined in the experiment, and an unexpected event, which violates this expectation.’
• so if this method is used to test object permanence, infants will see two conditions in which objects pass in and out of sight

Question 3

violation of expectation research - procedure

Answer 3

• Baillargeon and Graber showed 24 babies, 5-6 months old, a tall and short rabbit passing behind a screen with a window, testing occlusion
• in familiarisation event, baby is shown short and tall rabbit disappearing as they pass behind the screen (fits expectations of object permanence)
• one expected event where short rabbit passes behind a screen with window and, because of the window height, it is not visible until it appears on the other side (could also be tall rabbit)
• one unexpected event where tall rabbit would not be seen through the window as it moves from one side of the screen to the other (violates expectations as they expect to see tall bunny ears)
• baby who has object permanence should show surprise when shown the unexpected event

Question 4

violation of expectation research - findings

Answer 4

• babies looked for average of 33.07 seconds at unexpected event compared to 25.11 seconds at the expected event
• interpreted as meaning that babies were surprised at unexpected condition, follows that they must have known that the tall rabbit should have reappeared at the window
• they look at the event for longer to try and make sense of what is happening
• demonstrates a good understanding of object permanence

Question 5

baillargeon’s theory of infant physical reasoning

Answer 5

• proposed that humans are born with a physical reasoning system, we are born hardwired with both a basic understanding of physical world and also the ability to learn more details easily
• initially we have primitive awareness of physical properties of world, becomes more sophisticated as we learn from experience
• one aspect of which we have a crude understanding from birth is object persistence (the idea that an object remains in existence and does not spontaneously alter in structure)
• in the first few weeks of life, babies identify event categories, each category corresponds to one way in which objects interact
• for example, occlusion events take place when one object blocks the view of another
• baby is born with basic understanding of object persistence and quickly learns that one object can block view of another, by the time they are tested in tasks like the VOE, babies actually have a good understanding that the tall rabbit should appear at the window
• unexpected event captures baby’s attention because the nature of their PRS means they are predisposed to attend to new events that may allow them to develop their understanding pf physical world

Question 6

further research on idea of support

Answer 6

expected event - babies see someone pushing a box across another box (supported by bottom box)

unexpected event - babies see someone pushing a box across another box and then it continues to be push and floats further than the box (violates expectations that box would fall)

• babies did not appear surprised at first, inferred that they assumed that the finger had become attached to the box (only thing in contact), so repeated test without finger constantly touching box, and babies were surprised

Question 7

evaluation strength - validity of VOE

Answer 7

• method gets around a limitation of Piaget’s research - his assumption that when a baby loses interest in a hidden object, they no longer believe it exists
• Piaget’s method of studying object permanence cannot distinguish between this and the possibility that the baby became distracted by other stimuli and therefore stopped looking
• VOE method overcomes this because distraction would not affect the outcome, it measures how long the baby is looking at the scene
• Baillargeon’s method has greater validity than Piaget’s because a confounding variable is controlled

Question 8

evaluation limitation - may not be object permanence

Answer 8

• Piaget suggested that babies respond to an unexpected event but this does not mean they truly understand it
• further methodological issue is that babies’ response may not even be to the unexpectedness, all VOE shows is that babies find certain events more interesting, we are inferring a link
• method may not be an entirely valid way to study a very young child’s understanding of the physical world

Question 9

evaluation strength - universal understanding

Answer 9

• Hespos and Marle point out that we all have very good understanding of basic characteristics of physical world, regardless of culture and personal experience
• for example, everyone understands that if we drop a keyring it will fall to the ground, this doesn’t require past experience of dropping keys or even a culture that uses keys
• universal understanding suggests that a basic understanding of the physical world is innate, if it were not innate we would expect significant cultural and individual differences
• this innate understanding suggests that Baillargeon’s PRS is correct