Baillargeon's Physical Reasoning System

• Baillargeon argues that infants are born with a physical reasoning system, which is a basic "hard-wired" understanding of the physical world, which gives a head start to understanding other details of the physical world.
• Initially, they have a primitive understanding of the physical properties of the world which refines and becomes more sophisticated with experience and age.
• For example, we are born with object persistence (the innate ability to realise objects remain in existence despite not being in view).
• The nature of the physical reasoning system allows impossible events to capture infant's attention as they are hard-wired to pay attention to novel events that can help them develop new knowledge about the physical world.