Object Permanence
Critically examine views and works on infants’ understanding of the existence of objects which are out of sight and their abilities to imitate.
There has been much study into the development of an infant from birth. Attempts have been made to understand how infants perceive the world around them and then how they represent objects and how imitation then develops. In this paper we will consider the work of Piaget and the research that follows to consider if these view provide valid explanations (Bancroft and Flynn, 2005, 133-136). First we will consider how infants understand objects.
Object Permanence
When an object disappears from sight like that of a ball rolling under the coach, a four year old will know that it is simply out …show more content…
(1971). Given that it was possible with the observations made by Piaget could have been affected by the infants not having the ability to coordinate the movement to uncover the hidden item Bower devised an experiment that relied only on the infant’s visual system. Using two month old children, they where placed in front of a model train track and their gaze was observed when a screen was placed to block the view of the moving train from one end to the other. The train was occasionally stopped behind screen and again the infants gaze was observed. According to Piaget’s work it would be expected that the infant would stop looking for the train, however it was found that they continued to look towards where the train should be if it kept moving. But there are some problems with this experiment as normally the eye will track moving objects and may not mean and understanding of object permanence (Bancroft and Flynn, 2006, …show more content…
Baillargeon then devised another experiment using a toy car on a track and screen to block the view. Then a block was either placed on the track or beside the track. From the observations it was concluded that the child showed a preference for the impossible event over the possible event. Implying that they had an adult understanding of what should happen with the toy car in that block and the car continues to exist after it was covered (object permanence) and that the car should not be able to travel trough the block. This was even shown by Aguiar and Baillargeon (2002) in later experiments that children at 2.5 months would expect an object to be hidden when behind an occluder. Piaget saw this as a later development stage whereas Aguiar and Baillargeon claim that infants have this ability from the start (Aguiar and Baillargeon, 2002, as cited Bancroft and Flynn, 2006, 142,
There has been much study into the development of an infant from birth. Attempts have been made to understand how infants perceive the world around them and then how they represent objects and how imitation then develops. In this paper we will consider the work of Piaget and the research that follows to consider if these view provide valid explanations (Bancroft and Flynn, 2005, 133-136). First we will consider how infants understand objects.
Object Permanence
When an object disappears from sight like that of a ball rolling under the coach, a four year old will know that it is simply out …show more content…
(1971). Given that it was possible with the observations made by Piaget could have been affected by the infants not having the ability to coordinate the movement to uncover the hidden item Bower devised an experiment that relied only on the infant’s visual system. Using two month old children, they where placed in front of a model train track and their gaze was observed when a screen was placed to block the view of the moving train from one end to the other. The train was occasionally stopped behind screen and again the infants gaze was observed. According to Piaget’s work it would be expected that the infant would stop looking for the train, however it was found that they continued to look towards where the train should be if it kept moving. But there are some problems with this experiment as normally the eye will track moving objects and may not mean and understanding of object permanence (Bancroft and Flynn, 2006, …show more content…
Baillargeon then devised another experiment using a toy car on a track and screen to block the view. Then a block was either placed on the track or beside the track. From the observations it was concluded that the child showed a preference for the impossible event over the possible event. Implying that they had an adult understanding of what should happen with the toy car in that block and the car continues to exist after it was covered (object permanence) and that the car should not be able to travel trough the block. This was even shown by Aguiar and Baillargeon (2002) in later experiments that children at 2.5 months would expect an object to be hidden when behind an occluder. Piaget saw this as a later development stage whereas Aguiar and Baillargeon claim that infants have this ability from the start (Aguiar and Baillargeon, 2002, as cited Bancroft and Flynn, 2006, 142,