baillargeons explanation

• What did Renée Baillargeon believe?

  That younger babies have a better understanding of the physical world than was previously thought.
• Baillargeon believed that infant abilities were what?

  Innate
• What is the Physical Reasoning System (PRS)?

  Baillargeon's proposal that children are born with a basic understanding of the physical world.
• What is one aspect of the world of which we have a crude understanding from birth?

  Object persistence
• What is object persistence?


  The idea that an object remains in existence and does not spontaneously alter in structure.
• What is the violation of expectation?

  When what is expected is not what happens.
• Why was Violation of Expectation research conducted?

  To determine if young infants have object permanence.
• Violation of Expectation studies start with what?

  Habituation stage
• What is the habituation stage in Violation of Expectation studies?

  The stage where infants are familiarised with possible events.
• What does the Violation of Expectation study then introduce?

  Experimental stage
• What is the experimental stage in Violation of Expectation studies?

  The stage where an impossible event is introduced.
• How is surprise measured in Violation of Expectation studies?

  By measuring the infants' looking time.
• Who conducted the Violation of Expectation research with Baillargeon?

  Graber.
• How many infants were involved in the study?

  24 infants.
• How old were the infants in the study?

  5-6 months.
• What were the two conditions in the study?

  Possible condition and impossible condition.
• What happened in the possible condition?

  The tall rabbit could be seen passing the window but the short one cannot
• What happened in the impossible condition?

  Neither rabbit appeared at the window.
• What did the infants expect to see behind the window?

  The top half of the tall rabbit.
• What is occlusion?


  The principle of what happens when an object is obstructed behind another.
• What were the average looking times in the possible condition?

  25.11 seconds
• What were the average looking times in the impossible condition?

  33.07 seconds
• At what age did the infants demonstrate object permanence?

  As young as three months old.
• What did the study reveal about infants' understanding of object permanence?

  They had object permanence and understood occlusion.
• How was Piaget's research flawed?

  Failure to search might indicate a number of things besides lack of an object concept
• What might failure to search have indicated?

  The child has been distracted, lost interest, or can't coordinate its muscular movements to search
• What might the flaws in Piaget's research have led him to do?

  Underestimate children's abilities
• Why is the VOE method is a better method for investigating whether a child has some understanding of object permanence?

  It eliminates this confounding variable
• How does the VOE method eliminate this confounding variable?

  Simply losing interest in an object would not explain findings that children look for longer at impossible events
• How was Baillargeon's methods effective?

  They prevented demand characteristics and investigator effects
• The infants were seated on the parent's lap. How did they prevent demand characteristics from the parent?

  The parent was blindfolded, so they could not inadvertently communicate with the infant
• How did they prevent investigator effects?

  The researcher timing the fixation length was placed in a position where they could not see which condition was being tested.
• Baillargeon says that when infants look for longer at the impossible events, this is because of what?

  They are surprised because their expectations have been violated
• Who provided an alternative explanation of why infants look longer at impossible events?

  Schoner and Thelen (2004)
• What do Schoner and Thelen (2004) state that VOE studies only show?


  That the infants notice a difference between the two events.
• What do Schoner and Thelen (2004) argue as another reason why infants might prefer looking at the 'impossible' events?


  In the 'drawbridge' study, the 'impossible' event involves more movement than the 'possible' event