Object Permanance

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1. Object Permanence:

a. An object does not cease to exist simply because it can no longer be seen or

2. What is the A but not B Task?

a. The tendency that infants of a certain age have to look for an object in the

heard

location it was initially placed in (and possibly taught to look in) even after the

object has been obviously moved is called the A not B error. The task that proves

that, the A but not B task, is when someone shows the child an object and allows

them to see it placed in that spot. The infant grabs for the object in that spot.

Then the other person takes the object back and moves it to another (B) location

with the infant observing the move but the infant usually reaches for the location

they first found it in until a certain (undetermined age)

3. How do most infants at 10 months fail this task?

a. They look in location A once the object has been placed in location B

4. What did Baillergeon 1987 find about object permanence?

a. Baillergeon tested 3 ½ and 4 ½ month old infants watching a screen that showed

a screen rotating back and forth like a drawbridge. Then she added a box behind

the screen. In certain scenarios the screen drawbridge stopped when it hit the

box and it others it kept going like the box was not there. The infants who

habituated quickly to the normal drawbridge scenario looked longer at the

impossible scenario proving that they knew that something was wrowng because

the box was still behind the screen when it came down. Children at 3 ½ and 4 ½

months can have object permanence.

5. Why did Baillergeon use the 112 control condition?

a. Baillergeon had the 112 degree control event because, since it was a test of

looking time, she needed to be certain that the infants were not simply more

impressed or interested when looking at a 112 rotation than a 180 or vice versa.

6. What is the “pragmatic misinterpretation” that Topal et al claim infants are making when

they fail the A but not B task?

a. Basically they see the demonstration as a learning experience and because of

b. “ Pragmatic misinterpretation”- In the A not B paradigm, the interpretive bias of

that generalize the demonstration to mean object A goes in slot A.

generalizability (it refers to infants’ tendency to generalize knowledge when it is

in ostensive-referential contexts) may result in a pragmatic misinterpretation of

the object-hiding actions as potential teaching demonstrations. As a result, the

infant would tend to infer and learn some generalizable information. According to

this hypothesis, misinterpretation of the ostensively communicated hiding events

lead infants to commit the search error during B test trials.”