Children's early concepts of the physical world

Question 1

what is Piaget’s constructivist theory (Piaget, 1954)

Answer 1

• Chaotic perceptual input in early infancy
• Action is necessary for the child’s construction of knowledge
• Not enough to simply view people interacting with objects
• Late development of conceptual understanding about the world of objects

Question 2

what is Nativism – Spelke, Baillargeon

Answer 2

• core knowledge hypothesis
• infants possess innate knowledge of object concepts
• this constitutes to the core of adult knowledge
• developmental change involves
  a. refinement or core concepts (rather than their radical change) and further changes in additional abilities . e.g. experience fine-tunes knowledge about support

Question 3

what are the core principles of natvism?

Answer 3

• solidarity- no two objects can occupy the same space at one time
• cohesion- objects are connected masses of stuff that move as a whole
• contact- objects move through contact (i.e. do not move spontaneously)
• continuity- objects move in continuous paths

Question 4

what is Karmiloff-Smith (1992) theory of knowledge?

Answer 4

• Genes specify initial constraints/predispositions that channel attention to relevant environment inputs (both visual and physical interactions)
• Provide that infant with a non-chaotic system from the outset
• Lead to implicit understanding (not innate knowledge)
• Developmental change is necessary
  ○ Change from implicit to explicit within the domain of physical understanding (“representational redescription)

Question 5

what is Piaget’s account of object permanence?

Answer 5

• object permanence = awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible
• Piaget believed in late development of object permanence; acquired 8-9mo

Question 6

what A not B error, Piaget?

Answer 6

• when the infant searches for a hidden object where they last found it (location A) rather than at its current location (location B)
• they believe by removing the cloth in location A the object will be made there
• Infants grow out of this at 8-12 months

Question 7

Permanence and Solidarity study, Baillargeon et al. (1985) “Drawbridge study”

Answer 7

• wooden drawbridge that rotated 180 degrees
• habituation event was when it rotated the full way
• wanted to investigate if the infant could process the impossible event of a full rotation with a block in the way
• 5 month old infants looked longer at impossible event
• findings show that infants understand object continues to exist when hidden from view
• these findings challenge Piaget’s conclusions

Question 8

what are alternative interpretations of Baillargeon et al. (1985) “Drawbridge study” ?

Answer 8

1. perceptual persistence (Haith, 1998). When watching the drawbridge rise and obstruct the block, there was lingering activation of the block, ppts think they can still see it
2. preference for events that display more motion (Rivera et al., 1999)

Question 9

Permanence & Solidity, Baillargeon (1986): 6.5-8m-olds; Baillergeon & DeVos (1991): 3.5 m-olds

Answer 9

• 6 month old baby watch car go down a track
• car goes behind a screen and then the screen is lifted once the car has gone past
• screen is lowered and a block is placed on the track
• but the car still goes past as the block is lifted when behind the screen
• babies look longer at the impossible event (when the block is on the track) as they have an expectation of what should happen and an idea that the car shouldn’t go through the block

Question 10

Squashy or hard? (Baillargeon, 1987)

Answer 10

• hidden objects
• 7.5m infants represent the properties of hidden objects: infants looked longer at the impossible event
• hard block vs squishy block

Question 11

Infancy and beyond (impossible event) , Hood et al., 2000; Berthier et al., 2000

Answer 11

• infants 4 months old looked longer at an impossible event
• when a ball was dropped behind a screen and appeared at the bottom
• but then a shelf was introduced and placed behind the screen
• possible outcome: ball shown on top of shelf when screen removed
• impossible event: ball somehow managed to pass through the shelf and out the bottom

Question 12

what are search errors?

Answer 12

• a discrepancy has been shown between early looking data and later search errors
• infants (and 2 yr olds) have knowledge but unable to use it to guide their actions
• suggests early cognitive development involves constructing knowledge-action links rather than constructing knowledge itself

Question 13

what are some reasons for search errors?

Answer 13

• limited problem-solving abilities
• frontal cortex immaturity
• weaker representations that are sufficient to perform in looking tasks, but not in manual retrieval
• early representations are implicit

Question 14

what is the model of cognitive development by Karmiloff-Smith (1992)

Answer 14

• children’s intelligence undergoes changes as they grow
• implicit procedural knowledge → representational re-description → explicit declarative knowledge

Question 15

Infant can discriminate test events, what support these abilities?

Answer 15

• Innate core knowledge about object properties?
• Attentional biases that facilitate learning?
• A combination of both?

Question 16

There seems to be gradual development from infancy into early childhood. What drives these changes?

Answer 16

Non-mutually exclusive possibilities:
- Shift from implicit to explicit representations?
- Improvements in the ability to integrate perception and action?
- Improvements in the ability to plan and control action?

Question 16

infants and understanding gravity, Baillargeon et al., 1992
Wang, Zhang & Baillargeon, 2016

Answer 16

• Gradual mastery over first year
• Increased sophistication
• Role of experience of playing with and placing objects (cf Piaget)
• 3 months: initial concept contact/no contact
• 4.5 months (females), 5-5.5 moths (males): variable types of contact
• 6.5 months: variable amount of contact
• 12.5 month: variable proportional distribution

Question 16

Children’s naïve (intuitive) theories

Answer 16

• conceptual frameworks children spontaneously generate to make explanations and predictions about the world
• but these often involve simplifications and misunderstandings
• restraint to counter-evidence (similar to children’s overgeneralisations in grammar (e.g. using found instead of founded)

Question 16

The gravity error, Hood (1995, 1998)

Answer 16

• children infer trajectory of invisibility falling objects will be straight down
• some tubes connected straight down
• other tubes connect left to right (s shape)
• persistent error at 2-3 years as the ball goes to a different cup due to shape of the tube instead of straight down like they think
• if ball moved up they could realise that objets might not always go in a straight line
• when run with transparent tubes first the could find the ball but then when opaque they went back to the naive

Question 17

Naive theory, Karmiloff-Smith and Inhelder (1975)

Answer 17

• Naïve theory: All things must balance in the centre
• U-shaped behavioural performance in balancing asymmetrical blocks
• 4- 5-year-olds perform well by trial and error
• 6- 7-year-olds rigidly stick to a naïve ‘centre theory’ of balance and fail the task
• 8- 9-year-olds are flexible and switch strategy when evidence contradicts their ‘centre theory’

Question 18

When do children begin to know about conventional object properties such as the functional use of objects?

Answer 18

At approx. 1 year old, begin exhibiting object function through action:
- Begin to show correct use of everyday objects (e.g. bringing spoon to mouth)
- Play with objects functionally (e.g. bring cup to mouth, insert key in lock)
found that the knowledge emerges earlier:
- Hunnius & Bekkering (2010) Used an anticipatory-looking technique to find out if 6 to16m-olds have expectations about how a number of everyday objects are used