Topic Summaries

Baillargeon’s explanation of infant abilities

A-Level > Psychology > AQA > A-Level Psychology Topic Summaries > Cognition and development > Baillargeon’s explanation of infant abilities
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Addiction

  • 👥 Baillargeon (1985) disagreed with Piaget, arguing that a child not searching for an object does not necessarily mean they lack object permanence, as other factors like limited attention could explain this.
  • She developed the violation of expectation method, which shows that infants look longer at unexpected events, indicating surprise and a developing understanding of physical laws.
    • In her study with 24 infants aged 5–6 months, she tested object permanence using a tall and a short rabbit passing behind a screen with a window.
    • In the impossible condition, the tall rabbit should have been visible but was not, and infants looked significantly longer at this outcome, suggesting they expected the rabbit to reappear.
    • From this, Baillargeon concluded that infants as young as five months have object permanence.
  • In later research 👥 Baillargeon (2000), she explored containment (objects remain inside closed containers) and support (objects fall if unsupported but remain safe on stable surfaces).
    • She proposed the concept of a physical reasoning system, an innate ability that makes infants pay attention to unexpected events to strengthen their understanding of the physical world.

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