Cognition And Development: Baillargeon's Theory

Question 1

Define Knowledge Of The Physical World (PRS).

Answer 1

• The extent to which we understand how the physical world works.
• An example of this knowledge is object permanence.
• There is a debate about which ages children develop this kind of knowledge.

Question 2

What Is Nativist Approach?

Answer 2

• A theory that suggests that humans are born with innate abilities.

Question 3

Define Physical Reasoning.

Answer 3

• An innate system that provides a framework for reasoning about the displacements and interactions of physical objects.

Question 4

What Is Violation Of Expectations (VOE) Research?

Answer 4

• An approach to investigating infant knowledge of the world.
• The idea is that if children understand how the physical world operates then they will expect certain things to happen in particular situations.
• If these do not occur and children react accordingly, it suggests that they have an intact knowledge of that aspect of the world.
• E.g. when you drop your keys and expect a noise to be made but it doesn’t happen.

Question 5

What Is Baillargeon Belief On Sensorimotor Stage And Object Permanence? - Response To Piaget’s Theory.

Answer 5

• Baillargeon suggested that infants in the sensorimotor stage may have a better-developed understanding of the physical world than previously thought.
• Piaget suggested that infants did not reach for a hidden object because they lacked an understanding of object permanence.
• Baillargeon suggested it might be because they lacked the necessary motor skills to complete the task.

Question 6

Why Did Baillargeon Develop VOE Research?

Answer 6

• To compare infant reactions to an expected and unexpected event and thus was able to make inferences about the infant’s cognitive abilities.

Question 7

What Is The Base Idea Of The VOE?

Answer 7

• That infants will look at new things for longer than they will look at things that they have encountered before.

Question 8

Baillargeon And Graber VOE Research/

Answer 8

• Procedure:
  24 infants, aged 5-6 months, were shown a tall or a short rabbit passing behind a screen with a window. Possible condition: the tall rabbit can be seen passing the window but the short one cannot.
  Impossible condition: tall rabbit did not appear at the window.
• Findings:
  The infants looked for an average of 33.07 seconds at the impossible condition compared to 25.11 seconds at the possible condition.
  Interpreted as meaning that the infants were surprised at the impossible condition as they looked at it for longer
  This was because they knew the tall rabbit should have reappeared at the window.
  This demonstrated as an understanding of object permanence at less than six months of age.

Question 9

VOE Studies Used To Test Infant Understanding Of Containment And Support.

Answer 9

• Containment is the idea that when an object is seen to enter a container it should still be there when the container is opened.
• Support is the idea that an object should fall when unsupported but not when it is on a horizontal surface.
• In both cases children payed more attention to the ‘impossible’ events and there appear to understand the physical world.

Question 10

Baillargeon’s Theory Of Infant Physical Reasoning.

Answer 10

• Proposed that children are born with (innate) a physical reasoning system (PRS) and therefore have a basic understanding of the physical world and the ability to learn more details more easily.
• Initially, we have a primitive understanding of the physical properties of the world and this becomes more sophisticated through learning from the environment.
• At birth we have object persistence.

Question 11

PRS And Event Categories In Relation To Baillargeon’s Study.

Answer 11

• In the first few weeks of life, infants begin to identify event categories.
• Each event category corresponds to one way in which objects interact.
• Occlusion events occur when one object blocks the view of another.
• Because a child is born with a basic understanding of object persistence and quickly learns that one object can block their view of another, by the time they are tested in tasks like the rabbit research, children have a good understanding that the rabbit should appear at the window.
• The ‘impossible’ event captures infants’ attention because the nature of their PRS means they are predisposed to attend to new events that might allow them to develop their understanding of the physical world.

Question 12

Similarities And Differences Between Baillargeon’s Theory And Piaget’s Theory.

Answer 12

• Piaget suggested that infants did not reach for a hidden object because they lacked an understanding of object permanence whereas Baillargeon suggested it might be because they lacked the necessary motor skills to complete the task.
• Baillargeon’s theory takes a nativist approach as suggests that PRS is innate, which differs to Piaget’s theory as he suggests that everything is learned through interaction.
• Object persistence is similar to Piaget’s idea of object permanence, the idea that an object remains in existence.

Question 13

Evaluation: Strength - Eliminates Confounding Variables.

Answer 13

The VOE method is a better method for investigating whether a child has some understanding of the permanent nature of objects.
- n Piaget’s original experiments into object permanence, he assumed that the shift of attention was because the child no longer knew that the object existed, however it could simply be that they had lost interest.
- The VOE method eliminates this confounding variable, because simply losing interest in an object would not explain why children look longer at impossible events.
- This means that the VOE method has more validity than other techniques.

Question 14

Evaluation: Weakness - Hard To Judge Infant Understanding.

Answer 14

• It is hard to judge what an infant understands.
• It appears that children look longer at scenes where objects appear to violate physical laws, however we are simply inferring that this means that they understand the physical world.
• It could be that children are not looking at impossible events for longer, or there could be many reasons why they find one scene more interesting than another.
• These problems mean that the VOE may not be an entirely valid way of investigating infant understanding of the physical world.

Question 15

Evaluation: Strength - Helps Explain Universality Of PRS.

Answer 15

• The physical reasoning system (PRS) explains why physical understanding is universal.
• Hespos and van Marle (2012) suggest that without learning and regardless of experience all humans have a very good understanding of the basic properties of physical objects.
• The universality of this behaviour strongly suggests that this system is innate, otherwise we would expect cultural differences to occur.

Question 16

Evaluation - Weakness/Strength - Alternative Explanations.

Answer 16

• There are alternative explanations of an infant’s knowledge of the physical world.
• Spelke believes that infants are born with substantial knowledge regarding objects – an innate principles approach.
• This contradicts Baillargeon’s idea of an innate mechanisms explanation, where children are born with the ability to acquire certain knowledge very rapidly.
• However, Baillargeon argues that the innate principles approach would predict that infants should demonstrate expectations about all events related to one core principle, i.e. the principle of occlusion, at the same time, but evidence does not support this.

Question 17

Evaluation - Strength: Controlled Conditions.

Answer 17

• Baillargeon’s research was carefully controlled. For each of Baillargeon’s studies, the infant sat on their parent’s lap.
• The parent could have unconsciously communicated cues about how the baby should react.
• To prevent this, Baillargeon asked parents to keep their eyes shut and were asked not to interact with their child.
• This increases the validity of the findings as it reduces the impact of extraneous variables.

Question 18

Evaluation: Weakness - Responding Does Not Equal To Understanding.

Answer 18

• Behavioural response is not the same as understanding.
• Even if we accept that the infant behaviour of maintaining attention for longer on an impossible scene is a response to its impossibility, this does not mean that children understand the world.
• The conscious knowledge and understanding that we use to reason about the physical world is very complex and we cannot assess this ability fully in infants who do not have language.