Baillgeron

Question 1

What is Ballargoen’s explanation of early infant abillities research aiming to discover?

Answer 1

Unsuspected abilities of newborns and young children

Question 2

Why is Balligeron’s research hard to carry out?

Answer 2

Infants can’t easily indicate what they are thinking due to their inability to form language and perform movement

(lack of ability due to motor differences than a lack of mental ability)

Question 3

The contrast between Piaget and Balligeron

Answer 3

• Piaget suggested object permance did not develop around 9 months
• Balliageron suggested that the reason why infants did not search for objects they were out of sight - didn’t have the physical capability do so than failure to understand object permance

Question 4

What technique did Balligeron devise?

Answer 4

Violation of expectation (VoE research)

Question 5

What is VoE technique?

Answer 5

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

e.g tall carrot/short carrot study

‘What is expected is not what happens’

Question 6

What is object permance?

Answer 6

Knowledge that objects exist while hidden

Question 7

What did Balligeron’s research help to investigate?

Answer 7

A major aspect of the core knowledge theory

Core knowledge theory believes that humans have innate understanding of physical object and the relationship between them

Infants born with PRS

Question 8

What is the two possibilities with core knowledge theory?

Answer 8

• Innate fast learning - developed mechanisms
• Innate object knowledge - innante physicla properties of objects

Question 9

What did core knowledge include basic understanding of physical world

properties of objects e,g

Answer 9

• size

Question 10

What is first stage of VoE research?

Answer 10

Infants are shown a particular event (e.g train in circular track going into tunnel and emerging)

First stage allows infants to become familiar with stimulus and stop responding

Question 11

What is second stage of VoE research?

Answer 11

• Infants are divided into two groups
• Half of sample shown an unexpected event that is compatiable with what they seen before (e.g train going in tunnel and emerges) until shown unxpected (train fail to emerge from tunnel)

Question 12

What is the aim of the rolling carrot study?

Answer 12

To investigate infant’s ability to understand object permance

Question 13

Who was the rolling carrot study conducted by?

Answer 13

Balligeron and DeVos (1991)

Question 14

What is the procedure with rolling carrot study?

Answer 14

There was a large /small carrot sliding across a track and hidden at one part of the screen with a large window

The track was arranged so large carrots should be visible as a pass behind the window (in fact it does not)

Whereas small carrot (not as tall) should remain hidden.

The impossible event is the large carrot not appearing if an infant does have object permance, they show surprise (increased looking) shown this

Question 15

What is findings of rolling carrot task?

Answer 15

• Balligeron and DeVos found that children at young as three months demonstrated object permance when tested (Piaget found this abvility at eight months)
• Infants looked longer at the large carrot , presumably expecting the top half to be visible behind the video
• i.e. object permance to understand principle of occulsion (understanding what happens object is obstructured by another)

Question 16

What is the aim of the drawbridge experiment?

Answer 16

To investigate infant’s ability to understand object permance

Question 17

Who did the drawbridge experiment?

Answer 17

Balliageron et al 1985

Question 18

What is the procedure of the drawbridge experiment?

Answer 18

• First stage of experiment , infants (5 and a half months) were seated in front of a stage and shown drawbridge in flat position - 180 degrees
• This would repeat until infants habituated to event
• Second stage of experiment , a colourful box is placed on drawbridge
• Raise to 112 degres and stop

Question 19

What is findings of drawbridge experiment?

Answer 19

• Time was significantly longer at unexpected experimental stage
• Concluded infant’s attentionwas grabbed by the impossible event by drawbridge moving through block
• Conclusion - infants remeber hidden block’s existence - object permance

Question 20

What sampling method did Balligeron used?

Typically recuited participants by getting names from a list of recent births in a newspaper

Answer 20

Opprtunity sampling

it is less time and easiest

Question 21

What ethical issues related to VoE research?

Answer 21

• Deception - could give a full debreig
• VoE (risk) - Protection from harm
• Privacy - names given as numbers/Anon
• Consent given by explanation to parents

Question 22

Current reasearch

e.g Contrast with Piaget and Balligeron

Answer 22

• With Elizabeth offers contrasting explanation that believes infants are born with substantial knowledge regarding objects (innate principle)
• They argue that infants are born with knowledge which includes basic understanding of physical world
• Ballaigeron argues innate principles approach would produce

Question 23

First issue and debate

• culture bias

Answer 23

• Balliageron accused of culture bias in his theory
• This is because he utilised opportunity sampling in his procedure in which picked out recent births in newspaper
• This lacks validity in his method taking Western perspective only
• This shows his theory can’t be generalised to non-Western cultures

Question 24

Second issue and debate AO3

• Nature and nurture

Answer 24

• Balligeron takes side of both nature and nrture of the debate of his theory to be stronger
• This is shown as the innate mechanisms of object permance develop between 3-4 months
• As well as utilising innate fast-learning from the envirnoment
• This shows Balliagoern takes interactionist appraoch so can be generalised to envirnoment

Question 25

Third AO3 point

Strength VoE technique provides a better understanding of infants

Answer 25

• Piaget assumed that when infant failed to search for hidden object, infant thought it no longer existed
• Another interpretation would be that they would simply losing VoE technique that enables us to control this possibility
• This means Balliageron’s explanation provide a more valid account of infant abilities than Piagetian theories

Question 26

Fourth AO3

Limitation - hard to judge what an infant understands

Answer 26

• Using VOE technique we are predicitng how a baby might behave if a violation of expectations occured. However, they might not look longer at impossible events than possible events
• Additionally, infants might look for different lengths of time at different events just because they see them as different not necessairly because they have recongised it is impossible
• This raises a question about the validity of VOE for investigating infant understanding