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Baillargeon's explanation of infant abilities evaluation (the PRS…
Baillargeon's explanation of infant abilities evaluation
A better test of infant understanding then Piaget's
always problems with Piaget's methods of studying children's knowledge of the physical world
He assumed that when a baby shifted it's attention away it meant that the child no longer knew it was there
however they may just have lost interest
VOE method better method because it eliminates this confounding variable
simply losing interest wouldn't explain the findings that that the child stared at the impossible event for longer
this means that the VOE method hav higher validity than Piaget's or others methods
It is hard to judge what an infant understands
clearly shows that infants lood for significantly longer at some scenes than others
However what the VOE really tells us that babies behave as
we
expect to behave
two logical problems with this
We, as experimenters, are guessing and can never know how a baby might actually behave in response to a violation of expectations
although infants look for different lengths of time at the different events, it could just be that they see them as different
2) May be a number of reasons why the babies found one scene more interesting than another- it may not be because they are confused or
These problems mean that the VOE method may not be a entirely valid way of measuring infant understanding of the physical world
the PRS explains why physical understanding is universal
Susan Hespos and Kristy Van Marle (2012) pointed out without learning + regardless of experience all have very good understanding of the basic properties of physical objects
for example we all know that when we let go of a object it will fall to the ground
According to Hespos and Van Marle this understanding requires PRS
PRS being universal suggests that it is innate- this is what Baillargeon's
The PRS is consistent with what we know of other infant abilities
very difficu
Behavioural response is not the same as understanding
Gavin Bremner (2013) reminds us that Piaget distinguished between acting in accordance with a principle and understanding that principle
Even if we accept that the infant behaviour of maintaining attention for longer on an impossible situation is a response to its inpossibility
it is very different from the kind of conscious understanding we can use to reason about the physical world