Object Permanence in Five‐and‐a‐Half‐Month‐Old Infants?

Abstract

Event Set x Event Set designs were used to study the rotating screen paradigm introduced by Baillargeon, Spelke, and Wasserman (1985). In Experiment 1, 36 S%-month-old infants were habituated to a screen rotating 180" with no block, a screen rotating 120" up to a block, or a screen rotating 180" up to and seemingly through a block. All infants were then tested on the same 3 events and also a screen rotating 120" with no block. The results indicate that infants are using novelty and familiarity preference to determine their looking times. To confirm this, in Experiment 2,52 S%-month-old infants were familiarized on either 3 or 7 trials to a screen rotating 180" with no block or a screen rotating 120" with no block. All infants were then tested on the same test events as in Experiment 1. Infants with fewer familiarization trials were more likely to prefer the familiar rotation event. The results of these 2 experiments indicate that infants did not use the possibility or impossibility of events but instead used familiarity or novelty relations between the habituation events and the test events to determine their looking times, and suggest that the Baillargeon et al. study should not be interpreted as indicating object permanence or solidity knowledge in young infants.In the decade and a half since its publication, the study of object permanence in 5-month-old infants by Baillargeon, Spelke, and Wasserman (1985) has been fiequently cited in research and theoretical articles and plays a supportive role in vari-Requests for reprints should be sent to Richard S. Bogartz,

Detecting continuity violations in infancy: a new account and new evidence from covering and tube events

“…Second, as was mentioned earlier, some researchers have suggested that infants tested with violation-of-expectation tasks involving hidden objects may look reliably longer at the unexpected than at the expected events, not because they can represent and reason about hidden objects, but because the familiarization or habituation trials induce in them transient preferences for the unexpected events (e.g. Bogartz et al, 2000;Cashon & Cohen, 2000;Roder et al, 2000;Schilling, 2000;Thelen & Smith, 1994). Evidence that infants also succeed in tasks with test trials only can help alleviate these concerns (for additional evidence and discussion, see Wang et al, 2004).…”

“…Bogartz, Shinskey, &Schilling, 2000;Bogartz, Shinskey,&Speaker, 1997;Cashon&Cohen, 2000;Rivera, Wakeley, & Langer, 1999;Roder, Bushnell, & Sasseville, 2000;Schilling, 2000;Thelen & Smith, 1994;see Wang et al, 2004, for discussion). Could the results of Experiment 1 be attributed to such preferences?…”

When the ordinary seems unexpected: evidence for incremental physical knowledge in young infants

“…A number of researchers have argued that young infants may respond with increased attention to some events in VOE tasks, not because these events violate their physical knowledge, but because the habituation or familiarization trials induce in them transient and superficial preferences for the events (e.g. Bogartz, Shinskey, & Schilling, 2000;Bogartz et al, 1997;Cashon & Cohen, 2000;Cohen & Marks, 2002;Schilling, 2000). We refer to such accounts as transient-preference accounts (for a detailed discussion and test of such accounts, see Wang et al, 2004).…”

Object permanence tests on gibbons (Hylobatidae).

“…Diamond (1995) found that 6-month-old infants indeed have good recognition memory even in tasks that require reaching for the reward and attributed the failure to other factors, such as the inability to execute a means-end action sequence, relational skills, or speed of processing. Moreover, according to Bogartz, Shinskey, and Schilling (2000); Cashon and Cohen (2000); and Schilling (2000), infants do not use the possibility or impossibility of events but instead novelty and familiarity preference to determine their looking times. Rivera, Wakeley and Langer (1999) also questioned Baillargeon et al's (1985) claim that in their study the behavior of infants was due to representational reasoning but suggested rather that it is because of simple perceptual preferences.…”