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Lecture 4a: Infant Cognition (Object Permanence (Jean Piaget's search…
Lecture 4a: Infant Cognition
Object Permanence
Jean Piaget's search task failure
before 8 months, babies don't search-->objects cease to exist when hidden & concluded lack of object permanence
BUT also possible that they have object permanence, just that poor at searching for things
hide baby toy under cloth, see if babies search for it
reason for search failure
Infants' executive resources are poorly developed-->planning & executing a series of actions too hard
supporting evidence
Infants succeeded if actions are simpler eg. instead of covering object, just turn off the lights--> infants able to reach for toy (Hood & Willats: 5 mth old)
Infants succeeded when someone demonstrated the action (Aguiar: 6 mth old)
Fail other tasks that require planning even when object is visible
steps to succeed in a search task
Plan a series of actions
Execute that series of actions
Represent hidden object in memory
Baillargeon
Car study: 8 & 6.5 mth old
object permanence present at 6.5 mth but even 3 mth old have
Infants looked longer at impossible event when the car seemed to pass through the block placed on the track
Rotating Screen: 5.5 & 4.5 mth old
both looked longer at impossible event when screen able to swing through full 180 degree arc
object permanence at 4.5 mth but even 3.5 mth dishabituated too
Disappearing Minnie: 3.5 & 3mth old
3mth looked longer at impossible event than possible event but 3.5 mth looked equally at both
Reason
supporting evidence
3.5 mth showed 1 mouse, looked longer at impossible event
3 mth showed 2 mice, looked equally at both events
while both 3 & 3.5 mth know mouse exists when hidden & can detect violation in impossible event, 3 mth cannot generate explanation for violation
3.5 mth able to generate explanations for violation of expectation--> think that there are 2 mice
Conclusion
it is innate
Infants fail tasks that exceed their limited processing resources, not because they don't have object permanence
Object permanence present at 2.5 mth
Interpreting Events
Infants divide the world into event categories
containment
height at 7 mth
transparency at 9.5mth
understand width at 4mth
Infants identify variables that allow them to make sense of the events in each category
Occlusion
Collision
Support
(object on another object)
Infants learn separately abt each category. They don't transfer knowledge from one domain to another
3.5 mth realise tall objects cannot be hidden behind short objects
BUT don't understand tall objects cannot fit inside short containers until 7.5 mth
eg. understanding height for occlusion & containment
Understanding Numbers
for bigger numbers need to be twice as big to discriminate between larger numbers
Wynn's 1 or 2 objects task
if see 2-1 expect 1-->look longer when 2 shown
Infants able to keep track of objects over time
If see 1+1, expect 2-->look longer at 1/3
Starkey et al's 2 vs 3 objects task
eg. if habituated to look at 2 objects, will look longer when presented with 3 objects
Novelty Preference Method used
Inert vs Self-moving objects (Yuan & Baillargeon)
Floating Object
Inert condition
looked longer at unsupported event
2mth know that inert objects can't float
Self-moving condition
know that self-moving objects have internal force
think it's possible this internal force allows them to resist gravity
looked equally at both events
lecture vid: even at 7.5 mth infants know humans can't fly & will look very surprised
can objects pass through other objects
infants looked longer if cylinder passes through table
additional examples TB 161
acronym: Chew OCS