The challenges of child research:

1
The challenges of child research

• Baillargeons (1987) studies on the development
  of object concept

2
Outline

• Jean Piaget
• Piagetan approach to cognitive development
• Object concept
• Limitations of Piagetan theory
• Novel approaches Baillargeon
• The study
• Evaluation
• Subsequent studies

3
Jean Piaget (1896 1980)

• Swiss philosopher and developmental psychologist
• Published his first scientific paper at the age
  of 10 (on the albino sparrow)
• Altogether wrote over 60 books and several
  hundred papers
• Best known for his theory of cognitive
  development in children
• After moving to France, he taught at the school
  for boys run by Alfred Binet, the developer of
  the Binet intelligence test
• In 1923, he married Valentine Châtenay, together,
  the couple had three children, Jacqueline,
  Lucienne and Laurent, whom Piaget studied from
  infancy.

4
Cognitive development

• INTELLIGENCE- homeostatic-like mechanism the
  means by which human beings adapt to their
  environment.
• Childrens cognition is qualitatively different
  from adult cognition
• Lack of symbolic thought
• Cognitive mechanisms are not innate, but instead
  develop through interaction with the environment

5
Cognitive development

• OLD SCHEMA
• ASSIMILATION
• EQUILIBRIUM
• New experiences that existing schemas cannot deal
  with
• DISEQUILIBRIUM
• ACCOMODATION (Changing the existing schemas)
• NEW SCHEMA

6
Piagetan stages of cognitive development
7
Object permanence (video)
How do infants come to understand that objects
are isolated identities, existing independently
of infants interaction (perception, sensation,
manipulation?
8
Object permanence

• At 0,7 (7 months, 28 days) Jacqueline tries to
  grasp a celluloid duck on top of her quilt. She
  almost catches it, shakes herself and the duck
  slides down beside her. It falls very close to
  her hand but behind a fold in the sheet.
  Jacquelines eyes have followed the movement, she
  has even followed it with her outstreched hand.
  But as soon as the duck has dissappeared
  nothing more! It does not occur to her to search
  behind the fold of the sheet, which would be very
  easy to do Everything occurs as though the
  child believed that the object is alternately
  made and unmade
• (Piaget,1963)
• Now you see it, now you dont

9
Did Piaget understimate childrens skills?

• Subsequently, numerous researchers argued that
  Piagetan stringent methododology, relying on
  observation of motor behaviour, led him to
  underestimate childrens cognitive skills.
• Why?
• Novel paradigms in child research
• Bower Wishart 1972 Infrared camera
• Habituation
• Violation of expectancy

10
Baillargeon Experiment 1

• Participants
• Obtained through birth announcements in a local
  newspaper
• 24 infants, ranging from 4 months 2 days to 5
  months 2 days (mean 4 months, 14 days)
• 5 infants excluded from the experiment (why?)
• Procedure
• Habituation phase (children look at a screen
  rotating 180?, 6-9 trials)
• Test phase an impossible event and a possible
  event (alternating, 4x2 trials)
• Control group infants looked at screens rotating
  180? and 112?, without any obstacles
• Children were observed by two hidden observers,
  who were blind to the conditions They recorded
  looking times. Inter-observer agreement was
  calculated for each trial (88)
• Children were on their parents laps, who were
  instructed not to interact with their children
  during the test phase

11
Experiment 1

• Results
• Infants in the experimental condition looked
  longer at the impossible event than at the
  possible event, whereas the infants in the
  control condition looked equally at the 180? and
  the 112? events
• Planned comparisons indicated that the infants
  in the experimental condition looked reliably
  longer at the impossible (M 29.2, SD 20.6) than
  at the possible (M 17.7, SD 13.1) event (F 1,
  126 14.48, plt0.0005), whereas the infants in the
  control condition looked equally at the 180? (M
  15.1, SD 9.3) and the 112? (M 16.2, SD 12.3)
  events (F 1, 126 0.12).
• In other words
• Children recognised that there is something
  unusual about the screen rotating 180? through a
  wodden box which was in the way, implying that
  they have some notion of object permanence.

12
Experiment 2

• Participants
• 40 infants ranging from 3 months 15 days to 4
  months 3 days (M 3 months, 24 days).
• 6 other infants were excluded from the
  experiment.
• Procedure
• Identical to Experiment 1
• Results
• No significant main effects or interactions.
• Fast vs slow habituators
• Fast habituators looked significantly longer at
  the impossible than the possible events.
• No such effect was observed for slow habituators.
  
• Conclusion
• At least some infants at 3 ½ months realize that
  an object continues to exist when occluded.

13
Experiment 3

• Similar to Experiment 2
• A bright red Mr Potato Head used instead of a
  less attractive wooden box.
• Same results.

14
Conclusion

• Some infants at the age of 3 ½ months, and all
  children at 4 ½ months recognize that an object
  continues to exist when its occluded and that a
  screen cannot move through a space occupied by a
  solid object.
• A global understanding of object permanence could
  be innate, and then refined through experience.
• Or the child might be born with learning
  mechanisms that allow it to develop a basic
  object concept very quickly
• Evaluating object permanence on the basis of
  motor skills is inappropriate.
• The time lab between reasoning and motor skills
  can be explained by lack of means-end behaviour.

15
Evaluation

• Procedure described with great accuracy
• Two independent observers, blind to the
  conditions inter-observer reliability calculated
• Order effects controlled for (alternating
  impossible and possible events half the children
  see the possible event first, the other half see
  the impossible event first)
• Sophisticated statistical analysis, including
  interaction effects reported accurately
• Control group
• Ethics
• parents fill out consent forms (why?)
• partents are with their children throughout the
  experiment
• apparatus made attractive for children

16
Subsequent studies

• Baillargeon 1987b
• Infants have some knowledge that size and
  orientation of objects matter
• That some objects hinder movements more than
  others (e.g. a soft ball of gauze vs a wooden
  box)
• Other studies (e.g. Spelke et al. 1992 Diamond)
  confirm early object concept

17
General discussion

• Do novel paradigms overestimate childrens
  abilities?
• Performance is task-dependent (Mareschal 2000)
• What can we infer from a 10 sec difference in
  looking time? (Mareschal 2000 Haith Benson,
  1998)
• How do infants attain object concept so early? Is
  it innate (Spelke 1994)? Further research needed.
  
• If 4-month-old infant already posess some
  understanding of objects, why do they start to
  search for hidden objects no sooner than at 8
  months?
• If so, in what other ways could we study infant
  cognition in general, and object concept in
  particular?

18
Reading

• Key reading
• Baillargeon, R. (1987). Object Permanence in 3
  1/2 and 4 ½-month-old infants. Developmental
  Psychology, 23(5), 655-664.
• Additional readings
• Flavell, J.H., Miller. P.H., Miller, S.A.
  (2002). Cognitive Development. New Jersey
  Prentice Hall. (Ch. 3). (attached)
• Mareschal, D. (2000). Object knowledge in
  infancy current controversies and approaches.
  Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(11), 408-416.
• Moore, M.K. Meltzoff, A.N. (1999). New findings
  on object permanence A developmental difference
  between two types of occlusion. British Journal
  of Developmental Psychology, 17, 563-584.
• Munakata, Y., McClellans, J.L., Johnson, M.H.,
  Siegler, R.S. (1997). Rethinking infant
  knowledge toward an adaptive process account of
  successes and failures in object permanence
  tasks. Psychological Review, 104(4), 686-713.
• Simon, T.J., Hespos, S.J., Rochat, P. (1995).
  Do infants understand simple arithmetic? A
  replication of Wynn (1992). Cognitive
  Development, 10, 253-269.