Piaget sugested that babies don’t reach for a hidden object because they lack an understanding of object permanence. Baillargeon suggested babies have a better understanding of the physical world than Piaget proposed. Their behaviour might be better explained by poor motor skills or being easily distracted.
Baillargeon developed the violation of expectation (VOE) technique to compare babies' reactions to an expected and an unexpected event and thus was able to make inferences about the infant's cognitive abilities.
Baillargeon proposed that we are born with a physicalreasoning system (PRS) to enable us to learn details of the physical world more easily. Baillargeon referred to object persistence (similar to Piaget's object permanence) - we know that objects do not disappear.
From birth, babies identify event categories (ways that objects interact), e.g. occlusion events when one object blocks another. Since babies know about object persistence they quickly learn that one object can block another (occlusion). Containment; if something is out in a container it will stay there. Gravity; if an object isn’t supported it will fall.
