Object Permanence Task

Object Permanence Task

Intelligence - Nature vs. Nurture

Object Permanence Task

Renee Baillargeon believed that babies enter the world with some innate knowledge and some predispositions. In 1993, she proposed the Draw Bridge Experiment where she has shown that infants as young as 2 ½ months old enter the world with some innate knowledge of properties of objects or object permanence. The purpose of the experiment was to test the child’s knowledge of possible and impossible events.

• habituation trials: babies see drawbridge being rotated through 180o

• post-habituation trials: a block is visible on the far side

• the drawbridge was then either rotated through the 180o (impossible event) or stopped when it would have collided with the block(possible event)

Her research supports the idea that children looked longer at the impossible event when the box had vanished completely.

Baillargeon has demonstrated infants as young as 3½ months knew:
- that two objects cannot occupy the same space
- that objects continue to exist when they are concealed

Baillargeon experiments show that there must be some predisposition that infants are born with.

What the baby saw . . .

Experimental Set-Up:

Early Competance

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