lecture 6 - physical knowledge in infancy Flashcards
piaget
what did he say about development
-said development occurs in stages
-says they happen in order and automatically
-said mental representation develops between 2-7
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piaget and object permeance
-said objects exist even when you cant see them
-babies don’t understand this until 8 months old (he says)
critcism of piagets account
-piagets reliance on action tasks might underestimate young infants physical knowledge
-young infants might represent the object but still fail to physically search for it because ,
- maybe they cant plan or execute the necessary actions to retrieve the object
-they lack sufficient information processing resources to simultaneously represent the hidden object and carry out the required actions to retrieve the object
violation of expectation (VOE) paradigm
-by prof Renee Baillargeon
-what is it
-based on what
-why is this suitable for even younger infants
-a method of detecting what an infant knows about the way physical objects behave (physical knowledge)
-based on idea that infants tend to look longer at stimuli they perceive to be novel
-they show an infant an object and then present them with a new object (novel one) and so results show they tend to look at novel one longer
-looking task rather than action, its simpler and you can do this in younger infants ,
-can be modified endlessly
methodology of VOE
-habituation phase
-test phase
habituation phase : show the infant stimulus A (familiarise them)
test phase : show the infant stimulus A (old stimulus) and stimulus B (novel stimulus). and examine how the infant reacts to each stimulus i.e. does the infant look longer at stimulus A or B
possible outcomes of VOE
Infant looks longer at stimulus A (stimulus A > B) – i.e., infant is more interested in old stimulus
- Infant looks longer at stimulus B (stimulus B > A) – i.e., infant is more interested in new stimulus
- Infant looks equally long at both stimuli (A = B) – i.e., infant is not more interested in one stimulu
the stimulu are demonstrations with either….
-unexpected stimulus
-a ) an expected outcome
-b) an unexpected outcome
-if the infant recognises that there is a violation of expectations (an unexpected outcome) they are likely to look longer at or react to the unexpected stimulus
-infants can do this younger than 3 months (different to what Piaget believed)
evidence that infants look reliabily longer at the unexpected than at the expected event is taken to indicate that they:
1: possess the expectation under investigation
2: detect the violation in the unexpected event
3: are surprised by this violation
-ball rolling experiment
-toy experiment
-results
-ball supposed to roll in one direction, but there are two objects are in the way
-but the baby will see the ball end up between the two objects (even though the first object should have stopped the ball)
-got a toy, covered by a board, infant sees a second toy is added to mix, but when board is lowered, theres only 1 toy again
-if the infant has a mental representation or knows / can keep count, the infant should be surprised when they see there is only 1 toy
results
Infants aged 2.5–6 months realize that objects continue to exist when hidden
Young infants are far more cognitively competent than previously suspected through piagets experiment
VOE paradigm criticisms
-VOE experiments need to familiarise the participant with the expected outcome before showing the participant the unexpected outcome
- therefore , infants may look longer at the unexpected than the expected test event because the familiarisation/ habituation events used to introduce the task induced a preference for the unexpected test event
solutions for criticism of voe paradigm
-use voe tasks without the habituation phase
-use simple action task
explain using voe tasks without habituation phase
-experimental condition
-control condition
-wide and narrow event
-instead of showing the infant the expected outcome then the unexpected outcome, you can create two different groups:
-an experimental condition and the control condition
-in the experimental condition youve got these things called a wide event and narrow event
-in wide event, you’ll see the experiment with a box, and experimenter puts the box in a wider box, but the infant wont see it happen (board comes up) then board comes down and you see smaller box inside wide box
-narrow event
-basically trying to fit the same box but in a narrower box. again infant doesnt see it happening but when the board is lowered they see the bigger box somehow fits inside the smaller one
control condition
-small box fits into wider box
-small box fits into wider box
summary of voe task without habituation phase
experimental condition
-expected event: a wide object fits into an ever wider box
-unexpected event: a wide object fits into a narrow box
control condition
-expected event: a small object fits into a wider box
-expected event: a small object fits into a wider box
neither are unexpected
from removing the habituation phase in VOE
-do infants demonstrate longer looking times for unexpected events even if the habituation face is removed from the experimental procedure?
-yes , infants in experimental condition looked reliably looked longer at the narrow event than the wide event: those in control condition did not look longer at either event
-infants have a representation of hidden objects and their physical properties
simple action tasks
hood and willatts 1986
-will infants reach to the side where the object was shown?
-5 month old infants were shown an object within reach
-object presented on either left or right of the child
-experimenter turns off the lights
-will infants reach to the side where the object was shown?
yes infants are more likely to reach towards the side where the object was previously shown when the lights were on, demonstrating that they have representation of hidden objects using a simple action task
