Evaluation

• Strength - Strong Methodology

  Piaget assumed that when a baby shifted attention away from an out of sight object this meant that the child no longer knew it existed. However, the child might have shifted attention simply because they lost interest

  The VOE method is probably a better method for investigating whether a child has some understanding of the permanent nature of objects because it eliminates confounding variables

  Simply losing interest in an object would not explain findings that children look for longer at impossible events

  This means that the VOE method has better validity than some alternatives
• Weakness - Flawed conclusion based on inference

  We are guessing and can never know how a baby might actually behave in response to a violation of expectations - they might not actually look at impossible events for longer than possible events

  Although infants look for different lengths of time at different events, this merely means that they see them as different - there may be any number of reasons why they find one scene more interesting than another
• Strength - PRS is supported by evidence

  Baillargeon (2012) reports that while infants have object permanence by 3-4 months, they fail to be surprised at changes in colour at 11.5 months

  Therefore the evidence suggests that infants are born with some ability to understand and represent objects, but this becomes more sophisticated through experience