Summary of the Experiment
Renee Baillargeon (1985) who, using the solidity principle, concluded that “infants’ understanding of the principle that a solid object cannot move through the space occupied by another solid object” (p.195) would indicate an understanding of object permanence, the idea that objects continue to exist even when out of sight. This theory was brought to life using an experiment in which a screen was lifted in front of a box in two ways: a possible event in which the screen was lifted until it hit the box before returning to its previous position and an impossible event, in which the screen traveled a 180-degree arc, seemingly going through the box to lie flat on the floor again. Five-month-old infants were subjected to
…show more content…
One strength was that Baillargeon necessitated that the experiment not rely on “the extension or reproduction of an action, or (2) knowledge about superficial properties of object disappearances,” (Baillargeon, 1985, p.195) meaning the baby’s emotions and reactions were the evidence of object permanence, eliminating the errors of previous experiments. Furthermore, habituating the infants to the movement of the screen a 180-degree arc prevented infant shock in the real experiment from simply seeing the screen move, ensuring genuine reactions during the experiment. One weakness was that Baillargeon (1985) relied on the “assumption that infants react to novel or surprising events with prolonged attention” (p. 196). Staring, however, is frequent and common-place for infants thus invalidating it as an accurate measure of surprise. Furthermore, pro-longed attention indicating surprise in infants is only an assumption and its unknown whether this phenomenon has been proven true. Lastly all the families in the experiment were contacted by phone, meaning that each family was of a certain socio-economic status. Higher income families have more resources to care of their children and could therefore introduce their children to stimuli that better inhibit their understanding of object
In the experiment “ Talking to plants “ from Mythbusters, potential problems include the use of greenhouses with no sound insulation, a non-homogeneous location and the use of only one specie to infer on a population. In another scientific study, researchers chose to use “ a noiseless growth chamber to prevent any effects from extraneous noise “ and the use “ growth chambers under continuous light at 28 c and 65-75% relative humidity “ in order to maintain a homogeneous location for all plants during the experiment (Jeong et al., 2008) . This helped further explain the findings because with the use of noiseless chambers you can assure that the only noise that the plant was receiving was the one given in the treatment and a valid conclusion
I now set up two hiding places for the object and hide it under one of two covers repeatedly. When I switch the object to the second place, he no longer has the problem I saw earlier of searching at the more common of the two hiding places. I can’t even trick him by hiding it in my hand. I believe that this would best describe Kieran behavior, as both the information-processing and the Piagetian theorists that believe that children’s thinking becomes more sophisticated as they develop. “The information-processing approach arose in the 1960’s and is now a principle and useful approach to cognitive development” (Kail & Bisanz, 1992; Klahr & MacWhinney, 1998; Vigneau, Lavergne, & Brault, 1998). As both types occur in children’s development, Piagetian and information-processing theories complement each other with some researchers attempting to combine the two in an effort to develop stronger cognitive-developmental theories. “Scientific reasoning begins in infancy, babies see how objects move and behave, gather information, build patterns of expectations about the world around them and form general categories” (Gopnik, Meltzoff &Kuhl,
Baillargeon's article proves that some infants have object permanence as early as 3½-months. In order to test object permanence in infants, Baillargeon set up an experiment with two types of events. Recreating two types of real-life situations, an impossible and possible situation, the experimenters tested their hypothesis. These situations were designed to find out if infants understand whether objects have permanence even when they are occluded. Measuring the looking times of each infant on the events tested understanding. The experiment started by habituating the infant to the rotating screen. After habituation, they would set up one of the two events. The impossible event was a box in plain view, which slowly disappeared by the rotating screen. Then ...
The observations were done in Alisha’s home in her living room, on the floor. For task one there were five tests in total. Test number one was to find a toy that caught the attention of the child and then hide it behind a large object. I used her blue teddy bear as the toy, and a large piece of cardboard to hide it behind. For test two, while the toy was in Alisha’s view, I dropped it behind a lazy boy so it would no longer be visible. During test three, I hid most of the teddy bear under a blanket but
Infant Behavior and Development. 9, 133 - 150. Kisilevsky et al. (2003). The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary'.
Kelemen, D., Widdowson, D., Posner, T., Brown, A. L., & Calser, K. (2003). Teleo-function constraints on preschool children’s reasoning about living things. Developmental Science, 6, 329-345.
In this assignment I am going to describe a child observation that I have done in a nursery for twenty minutes in a play setting. I will explain the strengths and weaknesses of naturalistic observation through the key developmental milestones based in Mary Sheridan (2005) check-list and provide a theoretical explanation to support the naturalistic observation.
...ttention when the child attends to the same object or event as the caregiver (Harris, Sara). According to the object permanence, which understands that objects continue to exist when out of sight, was almost mastered by Peyton.
explains that the economic gap between high and low income families is affecting their children as
...ve that understanding of the concept of object permanence; in studying infants between one and four months of age, Bower and Wishart discovered that a baby will continue reaching for a toy for about ninety seconds after lights in the room had been shut off; the baby in question had a chance to see that toy and start reaching for it before the lights were turned off.
From my personal experiences, I have to come to the conclusion that it doesn't always work the way I believe when observing a child. I strongly feel that in order to get to know a child you should not spend most of your time observing him/her. Interacting with the child gives off better results. Not once or twice, this should be a consistent thing.
The Little Albert experiment has become a widely known case study that is continuously discussed by a large number of psychology professionals. In 1920, behaviorist John Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner began to conduct one of the first experiments done with a child. Stability played a major factor in choosing Albert for this case study, as Watson wanted to ensure that they would do as little harm as possible during the experiment. Watson’s method of choice for this experiment was to use principles of classic conditioning to create a stimulus in children that would result in fear. Since Watson wanted to condition Albert, a variety of objects were used that would otherwise not scare him. These objects included a white rat, blocks, a rabbit, a dog, a fur coat, wool, and a Santa Claus mask. Albert’s conditioning began with a series of emotional tests that became part of a routine in which Watson and Rayner were determining whether other stimuli’s could cause fear.
N.G., 4 years, 11 months, embodied all I could ask for in a child to conduct such an interview on. Nearing her fifth birthday in the upcoming week, her age is central between ages three and seven, providing me with information that is certainly conducive to our study. Within moments upon entry into our interview it was apparent that my child fell into the preoperational stage of Piaget’s cognitive development. More specifically, N.G. fell into the second half of the preoperational stage. What initially tipped me off was her first response to my conduction of the conservation of length demonstration. Upon laying out two identical straws, her rational for why one straw was longer than the other was, “it’s not to the one’s bottom”. This is a perfect example of an intuitive guess, though showing a lack of logic in the statement. A crucial factor of the preoperational stage of development is that children cannot yet manipulate and transform information into logical ways which was plainly seen through the conservation of number demonstration. Though N.G. was able to correctly identify that each row still contained an equal number of pennies upon being spread out, it required her to count the number of pennies in each row. In the preoperational stage of development children do not yet understand logical mental operations such as mental math as presented in the demonstration. Another essential element that leads me to firmly support N.G.’s involvement in the preoperational ...
Piaget described this stage to be where the infant is making sense of the world and during this stage the infant's knowledge is limited. This is where the main senses come into play, such as touch, taste, smell etc. At this stage sport to an infant is a sensory experience, with the use of a ball for example for exploration. Object permanence was highlighted by Piaget as one of the most important accomplishments of the sensorimotor stage. Object permanence is an infant's understanding that objects exists even if the object can not be heard or seen. For example with the game Hide and Seek, a younger infant will simply believe that the person hiding has completely vanished and will be shocked once that person is visible again whereas an older infant who understands object per...
For this report, I decided to pick the Bobo doll experiment that was conducted in 1961 by Badura, Ross, and Ross. The reason why I chose this specific experiment was because I have always loved children and I am always fascinated and sometimes a little horrified when I come across experiments that involve them. In 1961, Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross, and Sheila A.Ross decided to find out “if aggression could be acquired by observation and imitation” (McLeod,2011). 72 children (36 boys and 36 girls) were selected from the Stanford University Nursery School ranging from the age of 3 to 6. The researchers used four rating scales out of which the maximum point you could score was five. They observed the kids in their everyday life to determine