baillargeon's explanation of infant abilities Flashcards
what was Baillargeons criticism of Piaget
He underestimated the cognitive abilities of children, she suggested that children had a better understanding of the physical world than suggested. eg. the lack of understanding of object permenance could be explained differently - babies lack the necessary motor skills to pursue a missing object or are easily distracted.
How did baillargeon believe we could test young babies cognitive abilities
Developed the violation of expectation method. In a typical experiment there are two test events, the expected event and the unexpected event.
what was baillargeons procedure
24 babies aged 5-6 months showed a tall and short rabbit passing behind a screen. Expected event the short rabbit passes behind a screen w/ a window, because of the height the short rabbit dissapeares until it appears on other side. In unexpected event the tall rabbit would not be seen through the window as it moves from one side to the other. A baby with object permenance should show suprise at the unexpected event.
what did Baillargeon find from her experiment
Babies looked for an average of 33 seconds at the unexpected event compared to 25 seconds at the expected.
How can Baillargeons findings be explained.
when the baby does not see the tall bunny ears this violates their expectation, as they should see them through the window as there is nothing to occlude the view of the tall bunny ears. As their expectation has been violated they stare for longer to make sense of what they are seeing, this is inferred that they have object permenance.
what did baillargeon suggest was innate
humans are born with a physical reasoning system - a basic understanding of the physical world + ability to learn. - attend to events that might llow them to develop their understanding.
We have primitive awareness of the physical properties of the world which becomes more sophistaced as we learn.
what is object permenance
child’s ability to know that objects continue to exist even though they can no longer be seen or heard.
how did baillargeon test containment
place pen in a box with lid.
expected event - pen is still inside box
unexpected event - pen is missing.
how did baillargeon test support
placed apple on table, table is removed
expected - apple falls to ground
unexpected - apple remains hovering above ground.
what is a strength of Baillargeon’s methodology which allowed her to validate her theory
Method was highly standardised and used specialised mechanical equipment to test object permenance. She took a standardised measure of time which allowed her to measure and test many babies. As a result her findings were consistent, validating her theory and allowing sound judgements to be concluded.
what is an issue with Baillargeon’s methodology
Problematic to use visual gaze to objectively measure an infants cognitive understanding of physical reasoning. Baillargeon inferred that the baby is staring to try and understand the violation of the expected event therefore have object permenance. This inference is subjective, the infant may be looking away because they do understand the situation therefore are not interested, or because they were distracted. Difficult to 100% validate that longer eye contact means the child has object permenance.
