Baillargeon’s Explanation Of Early Infant Abilities

Question 1

Baillargeon’s theory

Answer 1

Infants are born with a physical reasoning system - an innate knowledge of the physical world
• Born with basic expectations about objects
• These innate abilities would then develop as infants interact with the world through experiences and learning

Question 2

Violation of expectation research

Answer 2

An approach to investigating infant knowledge and test for the physical reasoning system
• if a child has an intact understanding of part of the physical world they will have expectations about these objects
• when these expectations are violated - the child will look at the scene longer and their PRS pays more attention to scenes that will improve their understanding

Question 3

Evidence

Answer 3

BAILLARGEON - WHERES THE RABBIT
24 infants - 5/6 months
• Possible condition - a short rabbit cannot be seen passing behind a window but a tall one can
• Impossible condition - neither short nor tall rabbit can be seen passing behind a window

Infants looked at the impossible condition for 7.96 seconds longer
• Infants believed the rabbit continued to exist and pursued it trajectory behind the window but were surprised when it failed to do so

Acquire object permanence at 5 months not 8 months

Question 4

Evaluation

Answer 4

• Strongly challenges Paiget’s work - believes that in his research it may be the fact that infants cannot communicate effectively or misunderstand the nature of the tasks presented

• Good face validity - many animals ability to reason about the physical world is innate so it would make sense that humans would also have some innate features that allow for reasoning

• Removes confounding variable that children need to have the correct motor skills to search for an object

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• Research depends on the use of inferences - which could be mistaken. What counts as surprised? Very subjective

• evidence to suggest they look at the situations more because they are novel not that they understand physical principles

• infants studied are 2 1/2 months old even though Baillargeon claims the PRS is innate