AO3 - Baillargeon’s Explanation

• There are many studies that have used Baillargeon’s methodology, and they consistently produce similar results.
• Baillargeon’s theories are widely accepted amongst developmental psychologists.
• Baillargeon’s VOE studies have high internal validity, as many of the experimental variables were controlled sufficiently to say they were causing the effect on the results.
• The VOE method challenges Piaget’s research which claimed that when a baby loses interest in a hidden object, they no longer believe that it exists. It could be that the children were simply distracted by other visual stimuli and so stopped looking.
• All of Baillargeon’s studies provide empirical support for her theory of cognitive development.
• Bremner (2013) highlighted Piaget’s point that recognising unexpected events does not necessarily mean that children understand them.
• Baillargeon's methodology has been widely used to investigate infants' knowledge of object permanence, physical causality, and other aspects of cognitive development.
• Hespos & Van Marle (2012) suggest that Baillargeon’s ideas help us to explain our universal understanding of the physical world.
• Hespos & Van Marle (2012) state that the universal understanding of the physical world is innate, as we all have a good basic understanding of the physical world regardless of culture or experience.
• This innate basic understanding of the physical world suggests that Baillargeon’s physical reasoning system (PRS) is correct.
• Bower et al (1971) support Baillargeon’s research by demonstrating that four-month-old infants will move their gaze towards an expected event. They showed children a moving train which became temporarily hidden behind a screen before re-emerging the other side. The children were able to understand that the train was out of sight but would be expected to reappear.
• Bower (1974) argued that visual tracking studies reveal that 5-month-old infants can represent objects in space, something Piaget attributes to far older infants.
• Cashon & Cohen (2000) showed that infants looked longer at scenarios which were more interesting, challenging Baillargeon's ideas.
• Baillargeon, Needham & DeVos (1992) set out to establish what babies understand about support phenomenon; a technical term for our knowledge of how objects rest on each other.
• Baillargeon, Needham & DeVos (1992) used a sample of 32 babies aged 6-7 months in their experiment. The infants were seated on their parent’s knee and shown a box resting on a tabletop. During the trial a gloved hand reached out and pushed the box along the supporting surface to different resting positions; fully resting on the surface, 70% on the surface or 15% on the surface.
• Baillargeon, Needham & DeVos (1992) found significantly more time was spent looking at the impossible scenario (15% on the surface), suggesting the babies expected the box to fall onto the floor and their attention was captured when it did not do this.
• Baillargeon’s research clearly shows that infants appear to look for longer at scenes that break physical laws like object permanence.