Module 7 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development ● Piaget ○ First to study/experiment with child cognitive development ○ Tasks that were easy/replicable with children around the world ○ Did systematic observations and experimental testing of children Children’s perceptual world is not fundamentally different from adults as the organs needed for perception develop at an early age. Cognition may be fundamentally different however. ● Paiget’s (created cognitive development) 3 radical claims ○ 1. Constructivist view ■ Children are active agents in learning and knowledge acquisition (children are not a vessel where society pours knowledge into (Against Freudian view)) ■ Children are not passive entities shaped by rewards and punishment like balls of clay (Against Skinner view) ○ 2. Children are fundamentally different thinkers than adults (Stage view) ■ Major qualitative discontinuities in cognitive development ○ 3. No innate cognitive basis to development ■ There are general tendencies for adaptation and organization that are shared with all other animals ■ Piaget emphasized nurture, not nature, in cognitive development; as they interact with the world they create their own cognitive structures Stage Theory ● Universal sequence of 4 stages (based off tasks children can complete) ■ Sensorimotor (0-2) ● No object permanence ■ Preoperational (2-7) ● Learn to think about things in more symbolic ways, still egocentric ■ Concrete Operational (7-12) (mental representations are used but abstract thought is limited) ● Think and reason logically about concrete objects (Operational thought) ■ Formal Operational (12+) (abstract concepts are acquired) ● Think About abstract concepts and logically test hypotheses ● Development is parallel (development proceeds at same rate across all cognitive areas, ex. Preoperational in one = Preoperational in all) ● Development is discontinuous (each stage has qualitatively different cognitive structures) Example. A tree versus a butterfly ○ Implications are that children undergo a “mental metamorphosis” Preoperational Stage Sensorimotor stage ● The infant has intelligence, but is incapable of thought ● The infant perceives and acts on the world in more intelligent ways, ex. Grasping and throwing objects ● The infant is incapable of sophisticated mental representation (and hence incapable of thought, lives in the here and now). Preoperational stage ● Emergence of sophisticated mental representation ○ Mental representation: The capacity to have one thing stand for or represent another thing ○ Manifestation of mental representations ■ Delayed (deferred) imitation ● Mental images that stand for past events ■ Anticipation in problem solving ● Mental images that stand for future events ■ Pretend play ● Objects and actions that stand for other things. Ex. dressing up as a frog knowing you are not actually a frog but a representation of a frog. ■ Language ● Words that stand for objects, people, places, actions, events, etc. ● Comparing Sensorimotor and Preoperational stage ○ Sensorimotor ■ Only perception and action ■ No representation, no thought ○ Preoperational ■ Mental representation starts, so thoughts begin ● Can remember past ● Anticipate future ● Can imagine a different reality ● Not just a physical world but not a different perception of that physical world begins Main achievement of Preoperational Stage ● Main achievement ○ internalization of actions (child learns to carry out (represent) actions mentally) ● Main limitation ○ Internalized actions are not yet organized in flexible, reversible systems. ■ Piaget called reversible actions Operations ■ Hence, Preoperational thinking ● Consequences ○ Rigid, inflexible thinking, as shown in a wide range of tasks How can we test children’s stages? ● Conservation tasks ○ Preoperational children cannot focus on two aspects of a display simultaneously (centered) ○ Number conservation 5 pennies for child and experimenter, then asked who has more pennies. However if the experimenter lengthens the penny lines the child says the experimenter has more ● Class-inclusion tasks ○ Preoperational children cannot focus on two aspects of a display simultaneously (centered) ○ More yellow flowers or more flowers ● Seriation tasks ○ Preoperational children cannot focus on two aspects of a display simultaneously (centered) ○ Children are asked to order sticks in order of length but cannot ● Transitive-inference tasks ○ Jane is taller than sue, sue is taller than anne. Is Jane taller or shorter than Anne? Preop. Children cannot answer ● Three-mountains task ○ Preop. Children cannot think of the appearance and reality of an object simultaneously.(perspective taking). ○ Three different colored mounds, child is placed in front of green and a doll in front of red. Then asked “what does the doll see?” Preop. Children cannot answer. (Egocentrism) Piaget Revisited ● Is development actually parallel? (does development proceed at the same rate across all cognitive areas. ● To test this we would give battery of Piaget’s tasks to 5-10 year olds. ○ See if we get 2 distinct groups: preop should fail, concrete op should succeed ● In practicality, not as clear as Piaget predicted. For example, children would fail number conservation and succeed in three mountains and vice versa. ● Children do not develop in a parallel way ● Is development discontinuous (ladybug and larvae) ○ Answer is no, development is more continuous and gradual. ■ Evidence: modified piagetian tasks, novel tasks ■ Quantifier spreading (modified number conservation), children might not understand if experimenter is asking for who has more pennis “number-wise” or “length-wise”, failure in pragmatic reasoning. ■ McGarrigle and Donaldson ● 4-6 year children, “terrible teddy” comes in and stretches line accidentally. Then children succeed in this task. ■ Rose and Blank ● First grades (mean age 6), began with unequal stretched out lines first, preop. Children began by judging the 2 sets as equal. ■ Ellen Markman ● 4-5 year olds ● Two conditions: Standard - unit labels - soldiers ● Modified - set labels - army ● My soldiers are your soldiers - fail, my army your army - Pass ● These findings suggest that children could not understand what the relevant question was. ● Demand characteristics - the task isn't difficult cognitively but the language makes it confusing ● Modified piagetian task - visual egocentrism ○ Problem with three mountains task, mountains look the same from all angles ■ Helene Borke study ● 3-4 year olds ● Modified condition: rich display (house, lake, boat, animals) as opposed to 3 mountains ● Rationale: with richer display, easier to compute doll’s perspective.. ● This caused kids who failed three mountains task to pass this modified task ● Conclusions ○ General development appears more gradual or continuous than Piaget suggested ○ Young children appear more competent that Piaget suggested ○ Researchers became more skeptical of stage view. ● The competent young child ○ To explain the gradual improvement in young childrens performance in cognitive tasks, researchers evoked ■ Changes in information processing ■ Changes in experience and knowledge acquisition Module 8 Early physical reasoning: Part 1 - Categorization ● Can infants categorize objects, people, and things? (lump things that are similar in one umbrella) ○ Critical for knowledge acquisition ○ Quinn, Eimas, and Rosenkrantz study ■ 3 and 4 month olds, can they differentiate between a dog or a cat? ■ Familiarization trials ● On each trial, 2 color photos of cats OR dogs ● 6 total trials with all different cats OR dogs ○ See 12 cats or dogs total ■ Test trials ● Novel cat and Novel dog photos ● See which one they stare at longer ● Familiarized with cats, stared at dogs longer ● Familiarized with dogs, stared at cats longer ○ Behl-Chadha study ■ Also tested 3-4 month olds using the same method ■ Non-animal categories ● Familiarized with chairs, stared at couch or bed ● Familiarized with couches, stared at chair or bed ○ Superordinate categories (Broader categories) ■ Familiarized to 8 different 4-legged animals, stared at bird, fish or chair. ● Habituation and Dishabituation ○ Initial presentation creates an orienting response ○ Repeated presentation of same stimuli until boredom (Habituation) ○ Change property of interest and measure looking response ■ Increase in attention = noticed the change (dishabituation) ■ Continued boredom = didn't notice the change ● Arterberry and Bornstein, 2001 study ○ Habituated 3-month olds to either vehicles or animals ○ Then presented with a new stimulus vehicle or animal ○ Research question can infants categorize ○ Found that infants looked longer at an item from a new category than an item from an old category ● Categorization conclusions ○ Infants are capable of perceptual categorization (categorization based off perceptual features of the stimulus ○ Infants can categorize at different levels (superordinate vs subordinate) Object Permanence ● Piaget was an empiricist ● Piaget believed that children are fundamentally different thinkers than adults ● Piaget's 3 claims review ○ True - Children are active participants in their own knowledge acquisition ○ False - Major qualitative discontinuities across development ○ False - No innate cognitive abilities ● Researchers next began to study infants and soon discovered rich competencies that hinted at innate cognitive abilities ● Core knowledge hypothesis ○ Humans have a rich set of innate cognitive abilities ○ These core abilities, combined with our general ability to remember and learn, form the foundation for human cognition ● Causal reasoning - making sense of events in the world ○ ○ ○ ○ Physical reasoning (objects and other physical entities) Psychological reasoning (agents) Sociomoral reasoning (individuals with moral status) Guided by an innate skeletal framework ■ Consists of abstract principles and thoughts that help infants understand the world and reason about events ■ Becomes more elaborate with experience ● Physical reasoning ○ Object permanence ■ Objects are permanent entities in the sense that they still exist when out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind ● Before 8-9 months old, no object permanence, piaget would hide toys from kids and see if they search for it ● This finding was easily replicated, and had a huge impact ■ Over time, researchers began to consider the possibility that maybe young infants have OP, but have a problem with search. ■ Test: need non-search task to access OP. ○ New tests of object permanence ■ Violation of Expectation (VoE) method ● Show infants two events: Possible event vs Impossible event ● See which event they look at longer ● Infants and adults make predictions about upcoming information as events unfold. ● Assumption: Infants look longer at events they find surprising or unexpected ● Infants have a set of core expectations about the world and are surprised when these are violated ● Perez and Feigenson (2019) study ○ 12 months old ○ Violation of Solidity expectation ○ Researchers showed a car on a ramp, for the possible event the car would stop when it hits a wall at the bottom of the ramp, impossible event will be when the car goes through that wall at the bottom of the ramp ○ Infants looked longer at the impossible outcome. ■ Then show infants the wall, either a solid wall or a tunnel wall. ■ If shown solid wall, infants explore the car more ■ If shown wall with tunnel, infants explore the ball more ■ Conclusion: infants are looking for an explanation ● Renee Baillargeon ○ 8 and 6.5 month old infants ○ Used VoE to show infants two events ■ Possible event - consistent with OP ■ Impossible event- non-consistent with OP ■ If infants look longer at impossible events they understand object permanence ● Habituation event - car with ramp and a screen, screen goes up showing nothing behind it. Screen goes down and car goes through screen ● Possible event - car goes through screen and nothing is behind screen ● Impossible event - car goes through screen but before, it is shown that there is something blocking the ramp behind the screen ● Both 8 and 6.5 month old infants looked at impossible event much longer ○ Tested again with 5.5 and 4.5 month olds ■ Image behind a screen ■ Possible event, screen tries to fall down but is stopped by image behind it ■ Impossible event, screen tries to fall down and does so successfully ■ Both 5.5 and 4.5 looked reliably longer at impossible event over possible event ○ Aguiar and Baillargeon, 3.5 and 3 month olds ■ Habituation event, minnie mouse doll moving behind a screen ■ Possible event - doll goes behind screen and you can see doll peaking out of the screen with a cutout ■ Impossible event - doll goes behind screen but you cant see doll peaking out from the cutout of the screen ● 3 month olds looked reliably longer at impossible event ● 3.5 month olds looked at both equally, why? ○ They guess that there is a trick being played here thinks that maybe there are 2 mice ● 3.5 month olds - Lower screen, only 1 mouse - look reliably longer at impossible ● 3 month olds - lower screen, show 2 mice, look equally at 2 events. ■ Interpretation ● At 3.5 months old ○ Know mouse exists when hidden ○ Detect violation in impossible event ○ Can generate explanation for the violation ● At 3 months old ○ Know mouse exists when hidden ○ Detect violation in impossible event ○ Cannot generate explanation for the violation (unless shown 2 mice). ● Why do infants fail to search? ○ Processing load account (Bushnell and Keen) ■ Infants have limited processing resources ■ Infants fail search tasks because their processing resources are overwhelmed by the combined load of: ● Representing the hidden object ● Planning and executing an appropriate sequence of actions to retrieve the object ○ VoE tasks are easier than search tasks because infants have to represent and reason about the hidden object, but they do not have to plan search actions to retrieve them. ■ No combined load ○ Processing load account prediction - infants should succeed at search tasks if the actions are made simpler. ■ Test - have infants search for an object in the dark ■ Logic - Need only do a simple reach (easy to plan) to get the object ○ Hood and Willats ■ >5 months, success Early Physical Reasoning ● Current evidence suggests that infants are born with several physical principles that guide their reasoning around objects ○ Continuity - Objects exist continuously in time and space; they cannot spontaneously appear or disappear. ○ Solidity - Objects are solid entities that cannot pass through other objects ○ Gravity - Objects cannot remain stable in midair ● 2.5 month olds can detect continuity violations ○ Knows that a duck cannot spontaneously disappear after a screen covers it. ● 2.5 month olds can detect solidity violations ○ Knows that an object cannot pass through the sides of a container, putting a smaller can into a bigger can, lifting the bigger can and the smaller can is still seen outside of the can ● 2.5 months olds can detect gravity violations ○ Knows that a cylinder cannot remain suspended midair ● Stahl and Feigenson (2015) ○ 11 month olds ○ Show infants possible and impossible events ○ Impossible events violate continuity, solidity, or gravity ○ Then teach infants something new about the object involved in the event ○ At test, give them two objects (one from event and one not from event) and see which they explore more. ○ Using the car/ramp method again. ■ Teach infants about a hidden property of the car, it makes noise. ■ Test trial make car go up and down while noise plays ■ Make ball and car go up and down while noise plays ■ After watching the impossible event, they looked more at the toy car, showing that they learned object-sound mapping. ■ After watching possible event: no learning. ■ Conclusion: infants spend more time exploring objects that are involved in continuity, solidity, or gravity violations than they do other objects. Learning about the physical world ● Event categories ○ Types of causal interactions between objects. These include: ■ Occlusion (an object can hide another object ■ Containment (container contains containee) ■ Support (supporter supports suportee) ■ Collision (hitter hits hitee) ○ Infants identify the variables that help better predict outcomes within the category ○ Example: Containment events ■ As early as 2.5 months of age, infants represent an object hidden in a container ■ But do they pay attention to the objects width? Or height? Or color? ■ Infants learn to pay attention to these variables one by one through experience ■ 4 month olds infants have identified width as a containment variable: they detect a violation when a wide object is lowered into a narrow container. ■ By 7.5 months of age infants have identified height as a containment variable: they detect a violation when a tall object becomes hidden inside a shorter container ■ By 14 months, color is identified as well. If a purple object is hidden in a container and a orange object is pulled out, infants will detect a violation ○ Infants learn separately about each category ■ Example: the variable height ● Is identified at about 3.5 months old in occlusion events ● But is not identified until about 7.5 months in containment events ■ 3.5 month olds know you cannot occlude tall objects behind short objects Module 9 Early psychological reasoning ● When an adult observes an agent act in a scene, they attempt to make sense of the agents actions by inferring the mental state that underlie these actions ○ This ability is referred to by many names ■ Naive psychological reasoning ■ Theory of mind ■ Mental state reasoning ■ Mind reading ● ● ● ● ● ■ Mentalizing An agent is an entity that has control over its own actions (decides when and how to act) ○ People, animals, fictional characters What types of mental states are there? ○ Motivational states ■ What motivation the agent has in the scene ● Goal ● Preference ○ Epistemic states ■ What knowledge the agent has/lacks in a scene ● Knowledge ● Ignorance ○ Counterfactual states ■ What false information the agent has in a scene ● False beliefs ● False perceptions The principle of rationality ○ After they infer an agent's mental state, adults use these mental states with a principle of rationality, to predict the agents actions as the scene changes ■ Rationality: ● All other things being equal, agents act rationally ○ Rationality has two main corollaries ■ Consistency ● Agents act in a manner consistent with their mental state ● If I told you I liked apples and didn't like oranges. If you offer me an apple and an orange, i would reach for the apple not the orange ■ Efficiency ● Agents pursue their goals in an efficient manner What about infants? ○ Infants possess rich expectations about objects, do they also possess rich expectations about agents Motivational states: Goals ○ Can infants attribute a goal to an agent? Do they expect the agent to pursue this goal efficiently? ○ Detour task, Gergely, Csibra and colleagues (1995, 1999) ■ 6, 9, and 12 month olds ■ Experimental and control conditions ■ VoE method ■ Habituation event, experimental condition: rectangle barrier between left ball and right ball, ball jumps over barrier to reach right ball ■ Habituation event, control conditions: Rectangle barrier is behind right ball, so no need to jump over to reach the right ball, but does so anyways ■ Test event, old action: the ball jumps over and reaches bigger ball, but there is no rectangle ■ Test event, new action: the ball does not jump but moves in a straight line to the left ball ■ Results of experiment ● 9-12 months ○ Experimental conditions: looked reliably longer at the old action than at the new action: there is no need to jump over but still does so infants are confused ○ Control conditions: looked equally at the 2 events ● 6 months ○ No difference in looking time at all ● Interpretation ○ 9-12 month olds identify the circle as an agent ○ Attributed to the small circle the goal of reaching the bigger circle ○ Infants expect small circle to pursue goal efficiently and go to large circle in a straight line when barrier is removed ○ Control condition: infants cannot form an explanation for the small circles actions. Why is it jumping when there is no barrier? ○ Philips and Wellman (2005) ■ 12 month olds detour task ■ Experimental and control conditions ■ Experimental condition ● Habituation ○ Researcher reaches over an obstacle to grab a ball ○ Direct reach test event: no more obstacle so they reach directly for it ○ Indirect reach test event: no more obstacles but they still reach over. ■ Control condition ● Same as experimental but there is no ball. (no target, no goal) ■ Results ● Experimental condition ○ Infants looked longer at at the old action than the new action ● Control condition ○ Equally looked at both ● Infants can attribute a wide variety of goals to an agents including: ○ Obtaining, picking up, displacing, opening, throwing, storing, tearing, breaking, reaching, chasing, helping, comforting, hitting, sharing with, stealing from agents. ● Sticky mittens experiment Skerry, Carey and Spelke (2013) ○ Sometimes young infants have trouble understanding an agents goal but they can succeed with a little help ○ Detour task with an agent wearing a grey mitten ○ Video taped events ○ 3 month olds ■ Same as the philips and wellman study but agent wears a grey mitten ■ Initial results were negative: infants looked equally at two scenarios ● Most likely they weren't sure what the goal the agent was trying to pursue as they have no experience in picking things up ● Infants given velcro mittens allowing them to pick up other velcro objects ● Infants then looked reliably longer at old action rather than new action after being trained with velcro mittens ● Motivational states: preferences ○ Preference task ■ Woodward (1998, 1999); Song, baillargeon, and fisher (2014) ■ 5-12 month olds ■ VoE method ■ 2 object and 1 object conditions ● 2 object condition ○ Habituation event ■ Ball on one pedestal and teddy bear on the other pedestal. Hand comes out from the side and reaches for the bear. ○ Test trial ■ Change position of bear and ball, old action is reaching for bear, new action is reaching for ball ● 1 object condition ○ Habituation even ■ Hand reaches for bear ○ Test trial ■ Hand reaches for old object (bear) or a new object (ball) ■ Results ● At 5-12 months ○ Two object condition: infants looked reliably longer at new object condition ○ One object condition: infants looked equally at the 2 events ● These results have been replicated with human and non-human agents and with 3 month olds ● Interpretation 2 object condition ○ Infants identify the arm as part of a human agent ○ Based on unvarying choice of information, infants attribute to the agent a preference for the target object ○ Infants expect agent to maintain that preference consistently. ● Interpretation 1 object condition ○ Infants have no choice information to assess the agents disposition towards a specific object (are they grasping it cause they like it or cause its the only object there?) ○ Therefore infants make no prediction about what they will reach for in the test trial ● At least by 12 months old it appears to be a preference for a teddy bear in general and not a specific teddy bear ● Buresh and Woodward (2007) ○ 9 and 13 month olds ○ Same agent condition and different agent condition ○ Same agent condition ■ Habituation event ● Two objects, agent keeps reaching for a certain object over the other object ■ Test event ● Old object event ○ Agent reaches for the old object ● New object event ○ Agent reaches for the new object ○ Different agent condition ■ Habituation event same as above ■ Test phase ● New agent from before reaches for either new object (new object event) or old object (old object event) ○ Results ■ At both ages ● Same agent condition: infants looked longer at the new object event than the old object event ● Different agent condition: infants looked equally at both events ■ When infants attribute a preference to an agent, they view it as a disposition of that specific agent and not all agents. ● Emotional information, necessary for preferences? ○ Egyed, Kiraly, and Gergely (2013) ○ 18 month olds ○ Object-request method ○ Same agent condition, different agent condition ■ Same agent condition: researcher makes a pleasant face at one object and makes a disgusted face at the other object. Then asks the child to give the researcher one of the objects. ■ Different agent condition: same as the one above except a different agent than the one who made the faces asks for the child to give them the object ○ Results ■ Same agent condition: infants are more likely to give the agent the object she looked at with a positive face than the object with a negative face. ■ Different agent condition: infants are equally likely to give the agent either toy ■ Infants use emotional information to attribute preference, also assumed this preference will be agent specific ● Epistemic states ○ Concerns what knowledge an agent has or lacks about a scene (knowledge, ignorance) ■ Barrier: There is a barrier blocking the agents view ■ Orientation: the agent is facing in a different direction when the event occurs ■ Absence: when an agent is absent from the scene where an event occurs ○ Do infants keep track of what an agent knows and doesn’t? ○ In a preference task, do infants attribute a preference for A over B only when the agent can see both A and B. ○ Luo and Baillergeon (2007) (Barrier) ■ 12 month-olds ■ VoE method ■ Preference task ■ Transparent Knowledge condition ■ Opaque ignorance condition ● Transparent condition ○ Familiarization event: two transparent screens, researcher repeatedly reaches for one specific object ○ Test event: they reach for old object (old object event) or new object (new object event) ● Opaque condition ○ Familiarization event: one of the screens is opaque and keeps one of the objects hidden. Researcher always reached for the object with the transparent glass ○ Test event: they reach for old object (old object event) or new object (new object event) ■ Results ● Transparent condition: infants look reliably longer at the new object condition over the old object condition ○ As the agent can see both objects, infants attribute to her a preference for the target object she chooses in each trial ● Opaque condition: they looked equally long at both events ○ The agent can only see the target object so it is unclear what her position is towards it ● Evidence that 12 month old infants are not egocentric: they can distinguish between what they can see and what others can see, later extended to 6 month olds. ● Epistemic state: orientation ○ Liszkowski (2008) ■ 12 month olds ■ Pointing tasks ■ Knowledge and ignorance conditions ■ 4 trials in which the researcher takes an object off a black folder and places it in a drawer. ■ In one trial, one side of the folder collapses and the object falls to the floor. ● Knowledge condition: agent sees it fall ● Ignorance condition: Agent does not see object fall. ● While experimenter looks puzzled at collapsed folder, will the infant point to inform the experimenter of the new location of the object ■ Results: ● Infants are reliably likely to point out in ignorance condition over knowledge condition ● Infants are not egocentric: they understand that an agent may be unaware of an event in a scene because she was facing away as it happened. ● Epistemic state: Absence ○ Ting, He and Baillergeon (2021) ■ 5 months ■ VoE method ■ Preference task ■ 4 conditions ■ One wide toy, one narrow toy, both look the same at the top but the bases are either wide or narrow. ■ Familiarization trials 1 & 2 ● A hand comes out from the side of the wall and shakes the narrow toy which does not make a sound, it then takes the wide one and shakes it and it jingles. ■ Fam trials 3 & 4 ● The objects have switched spots, wooden matt over blue matt, hand comes out and shakes the wide toy and it makes a sound, shakes the narrow toy and it is silent. Researcher then shakes the wide toy. ■ Test trial (knowledge/perception condition) ● Two boxes, both boxes are equally wide, different patterns. A hand comes out and puts narrow toy in one box and wide toy in the other box while the experimenter watches. Wide toy still jingles ● Infants looked longer at narrow toy event ■ Test trial (no preference condition) ● Two boxes, one narrow one wide, hand comes out and puts narrow toy in narrow box and wide toy in wide box. Wide toy now doesn't jingle ● Infants look at both equally long ■ Test trial (ignorance condition) ● Experimenter is not present, both wide boxes, hand comes out and puts the two toys into the two different boxes. ● Infants looked at both equally long ■ Test trial (inference condition) ● Experimenter is not present, one narrow and one wide box, hand comes out and puts wide toy into wide box and narrow toy into narrow box. ● Infants look at narrow toy event reliably longer ■ RESULTS ● Perception condition: infants looked longer at new object over old object event. Experimenter was present so she knows where her preferred toy was placed. ● No preference condition: infants look equally long at both ● Ignorance condition: infants look equally long ● Inference condition: looked reliably longer at new object event over old object event. ● From a very young age, infants are very clever at keeping track of what others do and do not know. ● Conclusions ○ Even young infants are not egocentric ○ They understand an agent can have a different representation of a scene than what the infant has ○ When this occurs, they use the agents representation to determine how they will act ● Evaluation of Agents ○ Infants attempt to infer agents motivational and epistemic states, coupled with the rationality principle to predict what they will do next ○ Infants also evaluate an agent’s action ○ An agent who does not act in accordance with her likely mental states, or which acts in an inefficient manner can be seen as odd or irrational. ○ In physical reasoning there is no evaluation but there is for psychological reasoning ● Epistemic unreliability ○ Experimenter demonstrates an agent who does not act in accordance with their epistemic state. ■ Unreliable looker: exclaims in excitement after looking into an empty box ■ Unreliable labeler: the agent mislabels familiar objects ■ Unreliable user: they would put sunglasses on their feet ● Once it has been established that an agent is unreliable, infants are not surprised when they look for the toy in the wrong location. ● Less likely to learn a new word ● Less likely to learn how a new object works ● Infants not only attempt to interpret and predict an agents actions, they also evaluate them, and they avoid or mistrust unreliable or irrational agents. Counterfactual states ● False beliefs: beliefs that an individual holds about the world that is not true. Ex: believing that your favorite shirt is in the dresser when your roommate moved it to their bedroom ● ● Standard false-belief tasks ○ Wimmer and Perner (1983), simplified by Baron-Cohen et al. (1985) ○ Ages 3 and older ○ Story with props ○ Standard transfer-of-location tasks ○ Classic Salle-Anne task ■ Sally has a basket, Anne has a box. Sally has a marble and puts it into her basket. Then sally goes out for a walk. Anne takes the marble out of the basket and puts it into the box. Sally comes back from the walk and wants to play with her marble. Where will she look for the marble? ■ RESULTS ● At age 4 children can succeed in this task (Point to basket) ● They understand that Sally will falsely believe that her marble is still in her basket ● At age 3, children fail this task (point to box) ○ Similar transition aout 3-4 years of age has been obtained with a wide range of FB tasks, including ■ Presence of objects ■ Number of objects ■ Identity of objects ■ Properties of objects ■ Contents of an object ● Two broad views ○ Fundamental change view ■ First proposed by Josef Perner ■ Children under 4 cannot reason about counterfactual states ■ They cannot understand beliefs ● Belief: Representation not a copy of reality so it can be inaccurate or false ■ FB understanding is achieved through significant conceptual change at about age 4. It constitutes a major milestone in the development of human psychological reasoning (or Theory of Mind) ○ Processing load view ■ First proposed by Alan Leslie ■ Children under age 4 can reason about counterfactual states as well as motivational and epistemic states (they understand pretend play which is counterfactual) ■ They fail false belief tasks because the processing load is too high for these tasks. ○ How can we test between these 2 views? ■ Reduce the processing load in FB task ■ Still fail = Fundamental change view ■ Succeed = Processing load view. ■ Spontaneous-response tasks, we do not ask questions, we measure their spontaneous response to a scene. ■ VoE FB task ● Do infants expect an agent to search for a toy where she believes it's hidden even if it's false? ● Onishi & Baillergeon (2005) ● Transfer of location task ● 15 month-olds ● False-belief or true-belief conditions ○ Familiarization trial 1: researcher holds a toy and hides it in a green box. There is a yellow and green box. ○ Familiarization trials 2-3: same as trial 1, trying to habituate ○ True-Belief green condition ■ Yellow box moves close to green box and back, toy did not move boxes ○ True-belief yellow condition ■ Researcher sees as toy moves from green box into yellow box ○ False-belief green condition ■ Researcher is not looking and toy moves into yellow box ○ False-belief yellow condition ■ Researcher is looking as toy moves from green to yellow box. When she is not looking, it moves back into green box. ○ Infants would look longer when researcher reaches into a box that isn't aligning with her belief of where the toy is. These results have been extended to 6 month olds ■ Anticipatory looking FB tasks ● Southgate, Senju, & Csibra (2007) ● 25-month old toddlers ● Removal task: the object is removed from the scene, instead of being moved to a different location ● Two FB conditions, videotaped events ○ Familiarization trial 1 ■ Bear puts toy in left box ■ Doors above boxes light up ■ Agent reaches through left door to grab toy. ○ Familiarization trial 2 ■ Same as trial 1 but with right box. ○ False belief A ■ Bear puts toy in left box ■ Phone rings and researcher turns around ■ Bear takes toy out and moves it to right box ■ Bear takes toy away ■ Which door does child anticipate agent will open? ○ False belief B ■ Bear puts toy in left box ■ Bear moves toy to right box ■ Bear opens left box ■ Researcher turns around as phone rings ■ Bear takes toy away ● RESULTs ○ Toddlers correctly anticipated where the agents FB would lead her to search for the toy ○ Support for processing load view ○ Children and adults with high functioning autism have specific difficulties with FB tasks ○ They don't show anticipations in anticipatory looking tasks. ● Neural belief-processing FB task ○ Do infants, like adults, show more activation in the Temporal-parietal junction when an agent has a true vs false belief. ○ Hyde et al. (2018) ■ 7 month olds ■ Transfer of location ■ Used fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) to measure activation in TPJ Early sociomoral reasoning Distinguishing positive and negative actions ● Do infants evaluate actions as good or bad? ● Sociomoral reasoning - using moral principles (right, wrong, fairness) to understand and predict social interactions. ● According to the nativist view, infant’s sociomoral reasoning is guided by a few principles about how individuals should interact with one another. ● At Least 3 sets of sociomoral principles guide early expectations ○ Principles that apply to all individuals (fairness, harm avoidance) ○ Principles that depend on prior interactions of individuals involve (reciprocity) ○ Principles that apply when individuals are identified as members of the same group (ingroup love) ● The value of a social action is determined by ○ Its valence (positive, negative, neutral) ○ Its magnitude (how much) ■ Actions with a positive valence are actions that are helpful to others ■ Actions with a negative valence are actions that are harmful to others. ● Hamlin, Wynn, and Bloom (2007) ○ 10 month olds ○ Habituation phase: help and hinder events shown in alteration ○ Test phase ■ VoE task ■ Choice task ○ Both measures focus on evaluation of characters ○ Help event: circle cannot climb hill on its own so triangle helps push him up. ○ Hinder event: square pushes circle down the hill as it tries to climb ○ Test Phase 1: VoE method ■ Approach helper event ■ Approach hinderer event ■ Infants looked reliably longer at approach hinderer over approach helper ○ Test Phase 2 : choice task ■ Infants are presented with both helper and hinderer and encouraged to touch one. ■ They prefer the helper over the hinderer ○ REsults ■ Infants distinguish between positive and negative actions towards others ■ Infants prefer ● Helper over hinderer ● Helper over a neutral character ● Neutral character over a hinderer ■ Same preferences for other positive and negative actions ■ Same preferences with younger infants ■ Same preferences even when helping action was not successful. ○ More results ■ Intentions count! Same results at 8 months old whether the helper or hinderer succeed or fail at their task (hamlin, 2013). Engaging in Prosocial Behavior ● Infants engage in positive actions toward others ● Warneken and tomasello (2006) would infants help an experimenter in need of assistance ○ 18 month olds ○ First, warm-up phase with experimenter and child ○ 10 different test scenarios ○ Each child receives 5 experimental scenarios (E needs help) and 5 control scenarios (E does not need help), randomly determined ○ Scenarios include: out of reach, obstacles, achieving, wrong result, or using wrong means ○ Results ■ Reliable difference between experimental and control in 6/10 scenarios; out of reach scenarios seem easiest ■ Most infants helped in at least on situation ■ In most cases, infants helped spontaneously, before E looked at or spoke to them ■ Even 12 month olds help with out-of-reach scenarios ● Infants can distinguish between positive and negative actions directed towards them ● Dunfield & Kuhlmeier (2010): would infants give a toy to an experimenter that was clumsy but well-intentioned or an experimenter that teased them ○ 21 month olds ○ 2 women E1 and E2, seated at a table slanted towards them ○ Phase 1: E1 and E2 took turns offering toys, 4 each. ■ Clumsy E1: tried unsuccessfully to give child the toy, toy rolled back down the slant ■ Teasing E2: teased, removed toy when an infant reached ○ Phase 2: a third experimenter brings out a new toy, falls in between E1 and E2, and both reach out for it. ○ RESULTS ■ Of the infants who were willing to give new toy away, majority gave it to clumsy E1 over teasing E2. ■ Infants were equally likely to give the new toy to clumsy E1 or a successful E2 Expectations about other’s behavior ● The principle of fairness ○ Individuals should be fair when diving ■ Resources ■ Rewards for effort or merit ■ Punishment ● Sloane , Baillergeon, & Promack (2012) ○ 19 month olds ○ Experimental condition: agent says I have cookies, two penguins say yay ■ Equal event: gives each one cookie ■ Unequal event: gives two cookies to only one penguin and none to the other. ○ Inanimate control condition: penguins make no noise or movements ■ Still has equal and unequal event ○ Cover control condition: penguins are agents, but have boxes in front of them ■ Still has equal or unequal events. Cookies were always present under the box, not distributed by experimenter. ○ Results ■ Infants looked longer at the unequal event in experimental condition, but looked equally at both for the other two conditions ■ This result was also extended to 9 and 4 month olds. ■ Human infants possess an expectation of fairness. ● Buyukozer-Dawkins, Sloane, & Baillergeon (2019) ○ 9 and 4 month olds ● Sloane et al. (2012) ○ 21 month olds ○ VoE ○ Both agents work OR one agent works ○ Explicit, implicit, and control conditions ○ One work event ■ Two agents at each end of a display, third agent says “Wow look at all these toys, if you put the toys away you can have a sticker. Only one agent works to put toys away but both receive a sticker. ○ Both work event ■ Same as above but both work to put toys away ○ Explicit condition: The researcher told them that they would give them a reward. ○ Implicit condition: the distributor asked the agents to pick up their toys, but did not tell agents she had a reward. ○ Control condition: the containers are opaque, so the distributor could not see how much work each agent accomplished. ○ Results ■ Explicit condition: infants that saw the one work event looked longer than infants that saw both works events ● Infants had an expectation that workers should be rewarded and slackers should not be rewarded. ■ Implicit condition: infants that saw the one works event looked longer than infants who saw two works event ● The expectation is still there even without an explicit declaration ■ Control condition: infants looked equally at both ● Infants were responding to the work that was done from the perspective of the third agent. ○ First-party distribution tasks ■ Resource distribution tasks with older kids (3-5) years old ● Children are asked to divide a reward between themselves and an experimenter or another child. ● Result: children take the bigger reward for themselves ● Children’s own self-interest gets in the way here. Expectations about group membership ● Ingroup support principle ○ Individuals in a social group should act in ways that support the group and its members. ○ Has 2 main components ■ Ingroup care: one should act prosocially toward ingroup member, limit negativity ■ Ingroup loyalty: when dealing with ingroup and outgroup individuals, we should prefer ingroup and favor ingroup when resources are limited. ■ Not about outgroup hate ● Jin & Baillergeon (2017) ○ 17 month old ○ VoE tasks ○ Ingroup and outgroup conditions ○ Group membership is marked by novel labels (following minimal-group paradigm) ○ Ingroup condition labeling trials ■ 2 agents are a Bem and one is a Tig ■ Test trial, bem reaches for an object but cannot reach. ● Ignore event: the other bem does not help give the object ● Help event: the other bem helps give other bem the object ○ Outgroup condition labeling trials ■ Test trial, now with one bem and one tig rather than 2 bems ○ Ingroup condition ■ Infants view helping the ingroup as obligatory, so they detect a violation if the ingroup member does not help ○ Outgroup condition ■ Infants view helping the outgroup as optional, so they looked equally at help or ignore ● Language (accent and dialect) is a good indicator of ingroup membership ● Kinzler, Dupoux, & Spelke (2007) ○ 10 month olds (some american some french) ○ Speech phase: infants watch 2 movies in alteration, one with woman speaking infant directed english and the other with infant directed french ○ Toy offering phase: both women now side by side in the movie, silently offer identical toys which appear in real life before the infant. ○ RESULTS ■ In each country, infants were more likely to reach for the toy offered by a woman who spoke their native language. ● Bian & Baillargeon (prep.) ○ 12 month olds ○ VoE method ○ Using outfits to mark groups ○ Prefer-same event ○ Prefer-different event ○ Infants look longer at prefer-different event. ● Bian, Sloane, & Baillargeon (2018) ○ 19 month olds ○ VoE tasks ○ Group membership is marked by monkey puppets and giraffe puppets ○ 3 item condition (all puppets can get a cookie) ■ Results: infants expected fairness, they looked longer when it was not distributed fairly ○ 2 item condition (only enough for the distributors group) ■ Results: Infants looked longest at equal event and favors outgroup event. They expect the distributor to favor their ingroup. Numerical thinking ● What numerical systems are we born with? ○ Approximate number system ○ Object tracking system ● Approximate number system “number sense” ○ Allows for rouch approximation or estimate without counting ○ Limited precision (ratio signature) better for smaller numbers worse for larger numbers.
