Baillegeon

• What did she believe about younger babies knowledge on the physical world?

  Younger babies may have a better understanding of the physical world than previously thought by Piaget
• What did baillargeon say babies were born with?

  A physical reasoning system
• What is the physical reasoning system ?

  We are born hard-wired with the basic understanding of the physical world and the ability to learn more details easily
• What do we have awareness of (physical reasoning) ?

  physical properties of the world and this becomes more sophisticated as we learn from experience.From birth we can understand - object persistence
• What is the violation of expectation (VOE) research?

  In a typical experiment, infants see two test events: a

  possible event, which is consistent with the expectation examined in the experiment, and an impossible event, which violates the expectation
• What happened is the familiarisation stage (VOE)?

  Infants watch a moving apparatus a number of times, eg

  train moving down a track into a tunnel and out to the other side; a tall and short carrot moving behind a screen; a drawbridge lowering to rest on top of a block. All these events are possible
• what happened in the impossible event stage?

  Infants watch the same apparatus but this time the

  event they observe is impossible, eg the train doesn’t come out the other side ; the tall carrot does not appear in the high window of the screen at it moves behind the screen; the drawbridge appears to pass through the block.
• what was the procedure of the rabbit study?

  Baillargeon and Graber (1987) showed 24 infants (5-6 months) a tall and short rabbit pass behind a screen with a window. In the possible condition the tall rabbit can be seen passing the window. In the impossible condition neither rabbit appeared at the window.
• What’s the findings of the rabbit study?

  Impossible condition → 33.07 seconds

  Possible condition → 25.11 seconds

  Interpretation: Infants were ‘surprised’ at the impossible condition
• What’s the conclusion of the rabbit study ?

  For infants to be surprised it follows that they must have known that the tall rabbit should have reappeared at the window and so they have object permeance
• Baillargeon and Graber = occlusion study

  Occlusion = one object ‘occludes’ the other (is in front of it)

  VOE studies have also been used to test infant understanding of containment and support

  Containment = when an object is seen to enter a container it should still be there when you open the container

  Support = an object should fall when unsupported but not when on a horizontal surface
• What happens in the first few weeks of an infants life (pr)?

  Begin to identify physical reasoning
• Why does the impossible event get the attention of the infants?

  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
• 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 on their VOE (rabbits and windows), they have an understanding that

  the tall rabbit should appear at the window
• How did Baillegeon measure the child’s interest ?

  Measured how long they looked at the envent by timing them