Is Piaget’s search task a valid test of object permanence?

Today’s session You are learning about...You are learning to... Piaget’s sensorimotor stage Studies of object permanence by Bower and Baillargeon Describe and criticise ways of investigating infant cognition

Search tasks Failure to search could imply lack of object permanence or: – Loss of interest – Distraction – Limited working memory – Inability to coordinate search movements

Competence vs. performance A child might have object permanence (competence) but still not be able to search (performance) – Competence = underlying ability to do something – Performance = whether someone actually does it Piaget’s search task conflates (mixes up) competence and performance, leading him to underestimate infants’ abilities. This is a frequent criticism of all of Piaget’s methods for investigating children’s thinking.

Can you think of a more valid way of testing for object permanence? Many researchers have adopted the child’s looking as a measure of object permanence

Bower et al (1971) 5 month-old infants’ visual tracking was recorded as they watched a moving object disappear behind a screen.

Bower et al (1971) What would Piaget predict to happen once the object has disappeared behind the screen?

Bower & Wishart (1972) 4 month-old infants shown a toy. Lights were turned off so the room was in complete darkness. Infants were observed with an infra-red camera. – What would Piaget predict about the child’s behaviour once the room was darkened?

Why might we argue that Bower’s tests of object permanence are more valid than Piaget’s?

Baillargeon (1985; 1987) Used the habituation paradigm: – Infants will spend more time looking at new things. – They are shown a stimulus until they look away (habituation) – They are then shown other stimuli based on the first. Differences in looking time show that the infant can tell the difference between the stimuli

Baillargeon (1985; 1987) 4 month-old infants habituated and then shown ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’ events

Baillargeon (1985; 1987) 4 month-old infants habituated and then shown ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’ events

Baillargeon (1985; 1987) Baillargeon found that infants would look for longer at impossible events. What conclusions can be drawn from this finding? What do Bower’s and Baillargeon’s results imply about Piaget’s view of object permanence?

Homework Read the article about Baillargeon’s studies and answer the accompanying questions.