Baillargeon's Infant Research and the Development of Social Cognition
Baillargeon's infant research and the development of social cognition cover two connected areas of infant and child cognitive development: Baillargeon proposed a nativist explanation of early cognition, using violation-of-expectation research such as the classic drawbridge study to argue that infants have an innate physical reasoning system appearing earlier than Piaget claimed. Social cognition covers theory of mind, tested using false-belief tasks such as Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith's (1985) Sally-Anne study, and the mirror neuron system's role in understanding others' actions and intentions.
Before you start
Make sure you're comfortable with these topics first:
Method
- Learn what the violation-of-expectation (VOE) method tests: infants are shown a 'possible' event and an 'impossible' event, and their looking time at each is measured; looking significantly longer at the impossible event is taken as evidence of surprise, implying the infant already held an expectation about how the physical world should behave.
- Learn Baillargeon, Spelke and Wasserman's (1985) drawbridge study: infants watched a screen rotate like a drawbridge either stopping when it should have hit a hidden box (possible event) or appearing to rotate through the space the box occupied (impossible event); infants as young as about 4.5 months looked significantly longer at the impossible event, suggesting they understood the box continued to exist and that solid objects cannot pass through each other.
- Learn Baillargeon's physical reasoning system (PRS) explanation: an innate, core system present from a young age gives infants basic physical knowledge, such as object permanence and solidity, which is then refined through experience, contrasting with Piaget's claim that this knowledge is built up gradually through sensorimotor experience and not achieved until around 8 months.
- Learn the definition of theory of mind: the ability to understand that other people have their own beliefs, desires and mental states, which may differ from your own, and to use this to predict their behaviour.
- Learn Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith's (1985) Sally-Anne study: a false-belief task in which a doll, Sally, hides a marble and leaves the scene; another doll, Anne, moves the marble; children are asked where Sally will look for it on her return. Most typically developing children and children with Down syndrome correctly predicted Sally would look where she had left it (a false belief), but most children with autism incorrectly said she would look where the marble actually was, taken as evidence of a theory of mind deficit in autism.
- Learn the role of the mirror neuron system (MNS): brain cells that fire both when a person performs an action and when they observe someone else performing the same action, proposed to support the ability to understand and predict other people's intentions.
- Learn the debated 'broken mirror' idea: some psychologists have proposed that dysfunction in the mirror neuron system could contribute to the social and communication difficulties seen in autism spectrum disorder, though this explanation remains contested.
- For an AO3 evaluation question, build a paragraph using point, evidence, elaboration, link back (PEEL), e.g. contrasting Piaget's method, which required infants to physically search for a hidden object, a demanding motor skill, with Baillargeon's method, which only requires looking, a much earlier-developing skill, then linking this back to explain why Baillargeon's research may reveal earlier competence that Piaget's method could not detect, rather than showing Piaget was simply wrong about underlying knowledge.
Worked example
Infants are shown a tall carrot moving behind a screen with a large window cut into it, at a height where the carrot's top should be visible passing behind the window. In the 'possible' event, the carrot's top is visible through the window as it passes. In the 'impossible' event, the carrot fully disappears behind the screen and does not reappear in the window, as if it had shrunk. Using Baillargeon's violation-of-expectation logic, predict and explain the result.
- Identify the two events: the possible event matches how a solid, continuously existing object should behave, while the impossible event violates this, since the carrot should have been visible through the window.
- Apply the violation-of-expectation logic: infants who already hold an expectation about object permanence and solidity should be surprised by an event that violates it.
- Predict that infants will look significantly longer at the impossible event (the carrot 'shrinking') than at the possible event.
- Explain why: longer looking time indicates the infant detected something unexpected, implying they expected the solid carrot to remain the same size and to be visible through the window as it passed.
- State the conclusion: this pattern would support Baillargeon's claim that infants possess an early, perhaps innate, physical reasoning system that includes knowledge about object permanence and solidity, earlier than Piaget's stage-based account would predict.
Practice questions
Try each question, then tap to reveal the answer.
Q1What does the violation-of-expectation method measure?Show answer
Answer: How long infants look at a 'possible' event compared with an 'impossible' event, using longer looking time as a sign of surprise and an underlying expectation about how the world should behave.
Q2What did Baillargeon, Spelke and Wasserman's (1985) drawbridge study find?Show answer
Answer: Infants as young as about 4.5 months looked significantly longer at an impossible event (a drawbridge appearing to rotate through a hidden box) than a possible event, suggesting early understanding of object permanence and solidity.
Q3What is Baillargeon's physical reasoning system (PRS)?Show answer
Answer: An innate, core system present from a young age that gives infants basic physical knowledge about the world, refined through later experience rather than built up entirely from scratch.
Q4Define theory of mind.Show answer
Answer: The ability to understand that other people have their own beliefs, desires and mental states that may differ from your own, and to use this to predict their behaviour.
Q5What did Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith's (1985) Sally-Anne study find?Show answer
Answer: Most typically developing children and children with Down syndrome passed the false-belief task, correctly predicting Sally's false belief, but most children with autism failed it, suggesting a theory of mind deficit in autism.
Q6What is the mirror neuron system (MNS)?Show answer
Answer: A system of brain cells that fire both when a person performs an action and when they observe someone else performing the same action, proposed to support understanding of others' intentions.
Q7What is the 'broken mirror' idea?Show answer
Answer: A debated proposal that dysfunction in the mirror neuron system could contribute to the social and communication difficulties seen in autism spectrum disorder.
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a A Level Psychology exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
Outline the violation-of-expectation method used in Baillargeon's research into infant cognition.
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A four-year-old watches a puppet, Ben, put a toy car in a red box and leave the room. While Ben is away, a second puppet moves the car into a blue box. The child is then asked where Ben will look for the car when he returns. Using theory of mind research, predict and explain the answer a typically developing child, and a child with autism, would be most likely to give.
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Discuss Baillargeon's explanation of early infant cognitive development, and evaluate its contribution to our understanding of the development of social cognition. (16 marks)
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