An Account of Infants' Physical Reasoning

Renée Baillargeon, Jie Li, Weiting Ng, Sylvia Yuan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

This chapter presents an account of infants' physical reasoning. The account rests on two central claims. One is that infants' physical representations of events initially include only basic information and become increasingly richer and more detailed as infants gradually identify relevant variables. The other claim is that infants primarily learn what information to include in their physical representations, not how to interpret this information once represented. Infants' core knowledge provides a causal framework for interpreting both the basic and the variable information infants include in their physical representations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationLearning and the Infant Mind
PublisherOxford University Press
ISBN (Electronic)9780199894246
ISBN (Print)9780195301151
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1 2008

Keywords

  • Infant development
  • Infant learning
  • Infants
  • Physical representations
  • Violation-of-expectation method

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Psychology

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