cognition and development -Baillargeon’s explanation of infant abilities

Question 1

what did baillargeon suggest babies had?

Answer 1

.she suggested that babies had a better understanding of the world, and the apparent lack of ability was due to poor motor skills or being distracted

Question 2

what did baillargeon research?

Answer 2

.violation of expectation

Question 3

what was the overall procedure to baillargeons research?

Answer 3

.range of studies -babies attention to expected and unexpected events is compared/timed

Question 4

what was the procedure of baillargeons first study?

Answer 4

.Baillargeon and Graber (1987) Procedure: showed 24 5-6-month-old babies’ a short and tall rabbit passing behind a window

Question 5

what was the first finding to baillargeons study?

Answer 5

.babies look longer at unexpected events -tall rabbit doesn’t appear because it’s unexpected

Question 6

what was the second finding to baillargeons study?

Answer 6

.babies look longer (33.07 vs 25.11seconds) at unexpected condition

Question 7

what else was apart of baillargeons explanation of infant abilities?

Answer 7

.baillargeon’s theory of infant physical reasoning

Question 8

what did baillargeons theory of physical reasoning mean?

Answer 8

.babies are born with a physical reasoning system (PRS), basic understanding of physical world, including object persistence

Question 9

what did baillargeons theory of physical reasoning allow infants to do?

Answer 9

.allows them to interpret events, e.g. baby sees an object block another they learn about occlusion

Question 10

what are the strengths to baillargeons explanation of infant abilities?

Answer 10

.explain universal understanding -all children appear to have some understanding of the physical world regardless of their experiences and culture which suggests an innate PRS.
.validity + reliability -only 24 p’s in the original study but repeated in different ways and contexts shows research is reliable e.g. Hespos and Baillargeon had few demand characteristics, infants only a few months old, so valid

Question 11

what are the negatives to baillargeons explanation of infant abilities?

Answer 11

.may not be object permanence -we cannot directly tell what a baby understands, we have to infer it from their behaviour
-VOE research only shows that babies find certain events more interesting -therefore the VOE method may not be a valid way to study very young child’s understanding of the physical world and undermines the PRS