Familiarity Breeds Searching

What infants appear to know depends heavily on how they are tested. For example, infants seem to understand object permanence (that objects continue to exist when no longer perceptible) within the first few months of life when this understanding is assessed through looking measures, but not until se...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychological science Vol. 16; no. 8; p. 596
Main Authors Shinskey, Jeanne L, Munakata, Yuko
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Thousand Oaks SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC 01.08.2005
Subjects
Babies
Child development
Child psychology
Cognition & reasoning
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Summary:What infants appear to know depends heavily on how they are tested. For example, infants seem to understand object permanence (that objects continue to exist when no longer perceptible) within the first few months of life when this understanding is assessed through looking measures, but not until several months later when it is assessed through search measures. One explanation of such results is that infants gradually develop stronger representations of objects through experience, and that stronger representations are required for some tasks than for others. The current study confirms one prediction from this account: Stronger representations of familiar objects (relative to novel objects) should support greater sensitivity to their continued existence. After seeing objects hidden, infants reached more for familiar than novel objects, in striking contrast to their robust novelty preferences with visible objects. Theoretical implications concerning the origins of knowledge are discussed.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01581.x