Physical World and Spatial Cognition

Question 1

how have researchers studied infants’ understanding of objects?

Answer 1

objects through methods like violation-of-expectation looking-time tasks, and habituation or familiarisation followed by test trials.

Question 2

what happens following habituation or familiarisation?

Answer 2

in these tests, infants are presented with unexpected and expected scenarios.

Question 3

what types of information can children represent about objects?

Answer 3

unity

continuity

cohesion

contact and inertia

gravity

Question 4

unity

Answer 4

5m infants infer object boundaries by analysing movements.
if occluded elements move together, infants infer a single unitary object (Kellman and Spelke, 1993).

Question 5

continuity

Answer 5

infants expect objects to exist in one location at a time, using spatiotemporal continuity

Question 6

cohesion

Answer 6

objects are perceived as solid bodies, and expected not to interpenetrate other objects

Question 7

contact and inertia

Answer 7

infants understand objects need to touch other objects to influence their movement, and cannot move on their own

Question 8

gravity

Answer 8

infants expect unsupported objects to fail, and express surprise if they do not

Question 9

why is studying object knowledge in newborns challenging?

Answer 9

challenging due to poor vision and short awake spans, but imprinting studies in animals suggests there may be some way to explore this

Question 10

why did spelke and carey generate their theory of core knowledge?

Answer 10

infants display sophisticated knowledge about the physical world of objects around them before they are able to manipulate objects themselves

Question 11

theory of core knowledge

Answer 11

evolution endowed humans and other animals with systems of knowledge about specific aspects of the world (e.g., object, places, approximate numbers).

Question 12

how do the systems of TOC operate?

Answer 12

operate independently, have their own limitations, and are used to facilitate further learning – nativist perspective.

Question 13

benefits of the core knowledge system of objects

Answer 13

helps infants interpret events – making inferences about hidden locations – and guides their exploration

Question 14

limitations of the core knowledge system of objects

Answer 14

infants may struggle to encode object features, seen in Xu and Carey (2004) where 10m infants failed to expect two objects behind a screen

Question 15

what different frames of reference can infants use to represent space?

Answer 15

1. egocentric
2. landmark-based
3. allocentric

Question 16

egocentric (viewer-dependent)

Answer 16

objects are represented relative to one’s body

Question 17

landmark-based (viewer independent)

Answer 17

objects are represented relative to landmarks or salient features of the environment

Question 18

allocentric

Answer 18

objects are represented relative to landscape or celestial constants

Question 19

historic understandings of frames of reference vs new evidence

Answer 19

historically, egocentric representations were considered simpler, but evidence suggests infants have more objective ways of representing space via viewer-independent coding:

Question 20

evidence of viewer-independent coding

Answer 20

newcombe (1999)
kaufman and needham (2011)

Question 21

what did newcombe (1999) demonstrate?

Answer 21

5m infants can use geometric properties of the environment to locate hidden objects.

Question 22

what did kaufman and needham (2011) find?

Answer 22

infants by 6m can set allocentric spatial representations.

they used the table as a stable reference point, and were dishabituated when objects moved location with respect to these landscape constants.

Question 23

how did cheng (1986) reveal differences in human/animal spatial representations for navigation?

Answer 23

disorientation task found rats rely on geometric information to guide search for a reward

Question 24

when disoriented, what errors did rats make?

Answer 24

geometric errors by returning to a corner with similar geometry to where the reward was located.

Question 25

hermer and spelke (1994) infants’ navigation

Answer 25

notice landmark information (coloured wall) but fail to combine this with allocentric geometric information when searching for a hidden object

Question 26

what do children use language for?

Answer 26

to integrate different forms of spatial information

Question 27

types of verbal expressions used to integrate spatial information

Answer 27

1. spatial expression
2. task-relevant non-spatial expression
3. task-irrelevant verbal expression

Question 28

spatial expression

Answer 28

links object location to a spatial cue

Question 29

task-relevant non-spatial expression

Answer 29

emphasise the utility of the landmark in the task

Question 30

task-irrelevant verbal expression

Answer 30

draw attention to the landmark in an unrelated manner