Nativism Vs Empiricism
This essay will aim to illustrate two methods used by researchers in the domain of cognitive developmental psychology to gain information from infants, evaluate the interpretations of the results from both a nativist and an empiricist perspective, and highlight which perspective, if any, the research supports more. Firstly, the essay will define both the empiricism and nativism before progressing to highlight a main influential theory in cognitive developmental psychology. Secondly, the essay will highlight how research in object permanence is used to gain knowledge from infants before continuing to debate whether the research supports nativist or empiricist arguments. Third, the essay will show how numbers are used to gain knowledge from
…show more content…
infants before again debating whether the research supports nativists or empiricists. Finally, there will be a conclusion discussing the essay and its implications.
Empiricism in developmental psychology is a perspective, which believes that knowledge is acquired through experiences using our senses as a medium. Due to the nature of empiricism it refutes the idea that knowledge is innate (Sober, 2011). The nativist perspective in developmental psychology refutes the empiricist stance, believing that knowledge is an innate concept emerging from ones mind post-exposure to trigger rather than being acquired through learning (Chomsky, 1965). Jean Piaget’s constructionist theory is arguably one of the most influential cognitive development theories of the twentieth century (Piaget, 1994). Part of his theory involves stages of development, which set a framework highlighting when he believed children’s behaviours and thoughts would change. In particular, the sensorimotor stage is of great interest in developmental psychology as it illustrates, from Piaget’s observations, how infants acquire the object concept and understanding of object permanence. The sensorimotor stage encompasses six sub-stages, each of which is a progression from the latter when presented with a problem that the infant cannot solve. Piaget termed this scenario “disequilibrium” and it is this that propels the infant to the next stage of development, allowing the acquisition of knew knowledge to enable the completion of the problematic scenario, and thus achieving equilibrium again (Piaget, 1952).
Although not intentionally providing a nativist or empiricist stance, supporters of each perspective interpret the Piagetian paradigm as support for their respective perspectives (Parke & Gauvain, 2012). For example, nativists contend that the acquisition of knowledge to maintain an equilibrium is support for their stance as the infant has never ben exposed to this stimulus or even before, however, it unlocks an innate knowledge in order to handle the stimulus or event (Spelke, 1998). Conversely, empiricists would deny the nativists argument in favour of their own explanation that new skills were learned due to the exposure to the event, therefore, the child taught itself how to deal with the scenario (Spelke, 1998). Thus, empiricists would say that because of the external environmental causation, the child acquired a new piece of knowledge.
One method that Piaget used as measurement of infants cognitive development is the concept of object permanence (Piaget, 1954).
Object permanence is the comprehension that objects continue to exist despite not being able to see, or sense is in any way, requiring the ability to form a schema for that object. Piaget’s assumption is that the concept of object permanence develops between the age of eight and twelve months old, a theory which derived from his own research in which he covered a toy with a blanket and observed that the infant did not uncover the toy, thus, motivating him to conclude that the child does not yet posses the concept of object permanence. Despite Piaget’s observations being supported by various studies (Elkind, 1961; Corman & Escalona, 1969) the nature of Piaget’s methodology and interpretation of results has made it an ample area for serious debate between the nativist and empiricist perspectives. For example, from an empiricist perspective, these findings are in line with what you should expect, as the child has not experienced finding a hidden object before so has not been required to learn the procedure for uncovering the toy. However, a nativist counter argument to this study would be that the methodology and interpretation of the results are neither accurate nor representative of infants’ …show more content…
abilities.
Such refutation of his methodology can be found in Mehler and Dupoux’s (1994) publication, in which they suggest that infants are physically incapable of searching for hidden objects due to their lack of complex motor skills. Armed with this belief, nativists argue that completing tasks that do not require the use of complex motor skills, infants should demonstrate their understanding of object permanence far earlier than 8 months. Illustration of this hypothesis is supplied by Baillargeon’s (1987) study in which she aimed to investigate the existence of the object permanence concept in infants between the ages of three and a half and four and a half month old infants when the use of complex motor skills was not required. This research used a method labeled violation of expectancy and measured looking time in infants when presented with stimuli; thus, complex motor skills were not required. To measure looking time using violation of expectancy methodology, infants were habituated with an event showing a screen rotating 180 degrees. Participants were considered habituated when they no longer looked at the event and were then presented with two events, one possible and one impossible. The possible event showed an object blocking the rotation of the screen at 112 degrees, however, the impossible event showed screen rotating 180 degrees and passing through the object. As hypothesized, the infants looked longer at the impossible event, allowing Baillargeon (1987) to interpret longer looking times with the infants surprise at the impossible event and refute Piaget theory that an object permanence concept does not appear until an infant is at least 8 months old.
Through a nativist lens these results support the contention that infants have an innate ability to understand the properties of objects and so can form expectations about how objects should interact. Strengthening nativist’s belief, research from Baillargeon (2000) and Bremner’s (2001) publication defend the validity of violation of expectancy interpretations, as each task that they used in their experiments was different, suggesting an innate early knowledge that can be adapted and applied to a variety of scenarios.
However, an empiricist critique of this contention argues that it is unknown if the participants had encountered similar events before, for example, in their home they may have seen objects colliding, allowing them to understand that objects cannot pass through each other, thus, suggesting that the infants were surprised as they had already learned from experience that this was an impossible event.
Moreover, it has been argued that the increased looking time in this experiment could have been due to the similar 180-degree rotation between the habituation event and the impossible event (Rivera, Wakeley, Langer, 1999), henceforth, suggesting that the methodology used was flawed as the habitation event influenced the results.
In combatting these critiques, Wang, Baillargeon and Brueckners’ (2004) study conducted more violation of expectancy experiments and found the results were consistent, however, they omitted the habituation trials in order to extinguish the critiques about habituation influencing the results through similarity. The results remained consistent with their previous findings, and dismissed the refutations of Rivera et al., (1999)
Despite nativists being able to defend their position toward object permanence relatively well, they do not have such an easy task doing the same when faced with the number concept. Their argument presents Wynn’s (1992) study, which used 32 infants with an average age of 5 months. They were split into to groups of sixteen and put into either the “1+1” condition or the “2-1” condition. Baseline looking time was taken by allowing the infants to look at either a single object or two objects, depending on their condition, before occluding them with a retractable screen. Progressing, the first experiment presented infants in the “1+1” condition with one object before occluding it with the screen. Next the infant was exposed to a human hand holding a second object and maneuvering it behind the aforementioned screen before retracting empty handed. The infants were then shown two outcomes; one possible, which exposed two objects, and one impossible, showing one object. The results found that children looked longer at the impossible event. The same was found in the second experiment which utilized the “2-1” condition, wherein the experiment was reversed for subtraction as opposed to addition. Wynn interpreted the results as the infant’s understanding that there should be more or less than the original number of objects; depending on what condition they were in. These results are supportive of a nativist perspective, as they argue that the infants must have conducted mathematical calculations in order to be surprised that their calculation was wrong. Conversely, an empiricist stance would support Cohen and Marks’ (2002) refutation of Wynn’s (1992) interpretation of the results and contend that infants did not look longer at the impossible event due to surprise, but out of familiarity.
In foresight of such criticism, Wynn (1992) had conducted a third experiment with 16 infants to see if they knew not only that 1+1 should be greater than one but if they know precisely how much. Therefore, she presented infants with one object before occluding it with the screen, and then presented them with two events. One event showed two objects whilst the other showed three objects. They were more surprised at the presentation of three objects, suggesting that they were expecting to only see two. This finding suggests that infants are not only able to distinguish whether there should be more or less or something, but they know precisely how many there should be. This destroys arguments about familiarity affecting the results and strengthens the nativist stance as it suggest an innate mathematical ability, at least when small numbers are involved.
Haith (1998) also contended the interpretation of Wynn’ (1992) results, suggesting a perceptual ability rather than cognitive ability was the cause of the infants longer looking time. However, this is a critique that has not been answered in Wynn’s (1992) study and has proven to be a weakness of the nativist perspective.
Capitalizing on this weakness, empiricist utilize research from Uller and Huntley-Fenner 's (as cited in Haith, 1998) presentation to the Society of Research in Child Development to reinforce their argument which found similar results as Wynn (1995) in their replication experiments using the occlusion method.
However, they also conducted experiments that did not allow the infants to see objects prior to the screen being raised. Instead, there was a screen with nothing behind it, and then infants watched as an object was placed behind it from the left and again from the right. When the screen was lifted and there was only one object there, the infants were not surprised despite seeing two objects being placed behind the screen. This supports the empiricist stance as if numerical ability was an innate concept then the child would have been able to count that two objects were placed behind the screen and show surprise when presented with one, henceforth, empiricists contend that infants have not yet learned how to count. This argument weakens the nativist position as it points out that Wynn’s (1995) study may have simply shown that infants were aware of an objects existence before the screen occluded
it
In conclusion, although researchers use numbers and object permanence to further our understanding of infant’s knowledge, it appears to be a stalemate in the nativist empiricist debate. Both perspectives provide compelling evidence and reasonable criticisms of methodology and interpretations used. However, it appears that the nativists have a far more convincing argument for the concept of object permanence being an innate structure as research supporting their claims has effectively crippled all refutation towards nativist beliefs. This has been done primarily through the replication of violation of expectancy research, which omits the habituation process, allowing nativists to dismiss empiricist claims that familiarity with familiarization with the habituation trials influenced the results. Conversely, the nativist argument in numbers has not been as successful when dealing with the number concept. Despite a convincing argument, the nativists fail to provide the same wealth of research to refute all of the empiricist arguments. Primarily, the greatest weakness to the nativist argument in the domain of numbers is the absence of research to contend with Uller and Huntley-Fenner 's (as cited in Haith, 1998) findings that suggest infants could not count objects but can only perceive them. This by no means suggests that empiricists provide a more convincing argument, on the contrary, of the research provided above it is the only one that has yet to be challenged by nativists as at every other point the nativist perspective effectively and convincingly defended their view from criticism. As a result, the research presented in this essay supports the nativist position more convincingly than the empiricist perspective, however, for the nativist to maintain this position, research should be conducted on the numerical abilities of infants without exposure to objects prior to their occlusion.
References
Baillargeon, R. (1987). Object Permanence in 3 1⁄2 and 4 1⁄2 Month Old Infants. Developmental Psychology, 23, 655-664.
Baillargeon, R. (2000). Reply to Bogartz, Shinskey & Schilling; Schilling; and Cashon & Cohen. Infancy, 1, 447-462.
Bremner, J.G. (2001). Cognitive Development. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
Cohen, L. B., & Marks, K. S. (2002). How infants process addition and subtraction events. Developmental Science, 5, 186-201.
Corman, H. H., & Escalona, S. K. (1969). Stages of Sensorimotor Development: A Replication Study. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development,15, 351-361.
Elkind, D. (1961). Children 's discovery of the conservation of mass, weight, and volume: Piaget Replication Study II. The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 98, 219-227.
Haith, M. M. (1998). Who put the cog in infant cognition? Is rich interpretation too costly?. Infant Behavior and Development, 21, 167 – 179.
Mehler, J. & Dupoux, E. (1994). What Infants Know: The New Cognitive Science of Early Development. Oxford: Blackwell.
Parke, R. D., & Gauvain, M. (2012). Developmental Psychology. Berkshire: McGraw- Hill Education.
Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J. (1954). The Construction of Reality in the Child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Rivera, S.M., Wakeley, A. & Langer, J. (1999). The Drawbridge Phenomenon: Representational Reasoning or Perceptual Preference? Developmental Psychology, 35, 427-435.
Sober, E. (2011). Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards?: Philosophical Essays on Darwin’s Theory. New York. Prometheus Books.
Spelke, E. S. (1998). Nativism, Empiricism and the Origin of Knowledge. Infant Behavior and Development, 21(2), 181 – 200.
Wang, S-h., Baillargeon, R. & Brueckner, L. (2004). Young Infants’ Reasoning About Hidden Objects: Evidence from Violation of Expectation Tasks with Test Trials Only. Cognition, 23, 167-198.
Wynn, K. (1992). Addition and subtraction by human infants. Nature, 358, 749-750.
Wynn, K. (1995). Infants possess a system of numerical knowledge. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4, 172–176.
infants before again debating whether the research supports nativists or empiricists. Finally, there will be a conclusion discussing the essay and its implications.
Empiricism in developmental psychology is a perspective, which believes that knowledge is acquired through experiences using our senses as a medium. Due to the nature of empiricism it refutes the idea that knowledge is innate (Sober, 2011). The nativist perspective in developmental psychology refutes the empiricist stance, believing that knowledge is an innate concept emerging from ones mind post-exposure to trigger rather than being acquired through learning (Chomsky, 1965). Jean Piaget’s constructionist theory is arguably one of the most influential cognitive development theories of the twentieth century (Piaget, 1994). Part of his theory involves stages of development, which set a framework highlighting when he believed children’s behaviours and thoughts would change. In particular, the sensorimotor stage is of great interest in developmental psychology as it illustrates, from Piaget’s observations, how infants acquire the object concept and understanding of object permanence. The sensorimotor stage encompasses six sub-stages, each of which is a progression from the latter when presented with a problem that the infant cannot solve. Piaget termed this scenario “disequilibrium” and it is this that propels the infant to the next stage of development, allowing the acquisition of knew knowledge to enable the completion of the problematic scenario, and thus achieving equilibrium again (Piaget, 1952).
Although not intentionally providing a nativist or empiricist stance, supporters of each perspective interpret the Piagetian paradigm as support for their respective perspectives (Parke & Gauvain, 2012). For example, nativists contend that the acquisition of knowledge to maintain an equilibrium is support for their stance as the infant has never ben exposed to this stimulus or even before, however, it unlocks an innate knowledge in order to handle the stimulus or event (Spelke, 1998). Conversely, empiricists would deny the nativists argument in favour of their own explanation that new skills were learned due to the exposure to the event, therefore, the child taught itself how to deal with the scenario (Spelke, 1998). Thus, empiricists would say that because of the external environmental causation, the child acquired a new piece of knowledge.
One method that Piaget used as measurement of infants cognitive development is the concept of object permanence (Piaget, 1954).
Object permanence is the comprehension that objects continue to exist despite not being able to see, or sense is in any way, requiring the ability to form a schema for that object. Piaget’s assumption is that the concept of object permanence develops between the age of eight and twelve months old, a theory which derived from his own research in which he covered a toy with a blanket and observed that the infant did not uncover the toy, thus, motivating him to conclude that the child does not yet posses the concept of object permanence. Despite Piaget’s observations being supported by various studies (Elkind, 1961; Corman & Escalona, 1969) the nature of Piaget’s methodology and interpretation of results has made it an ample area for serious debate between the nativist and empiricist perspectives. For example, from an empiricist perspective, these findings are in line with what you should expect, as the child has not experienced finding a hidden object before so has not been required to learn the procedure for uncovering the toy. However, a nativist counter argument to this study would be that the methodology and interpretation of the results are neither accurate nor representative of infants’ …show more content…
abilities.
Such refutation of his methodology can be found in Mehler and Dupoux’s (1994) publication, in which they suggest that infants are physically incapable of searching for hidden objects due to their lack of complex motor skills. Armed with this belief, nativists argue that completing tasks that do not require the use of complex motor skills, infants should demonstrate their understanding of object permanence far earlier than 8 months. Illustration of this hypothesis is supplied by Baillargeon’s (1987) study in which she aimed to investigate the existence of the object permanence concept in infants between the ages of three and a half and four and a half month old infants when the use of complex motor skills was not required. This research used a method labeled violation of expectancy and measured looking time in infants when presented with stimuli; thus, complex motor skills were not required. To measure looking time using violation of expectancy methodology, infants were habituated with an event showing a screen rotating 180 degrees. Participants were considered habituated when they no longer looked at the event and were then presented with two events, one possible and one impossible. The possible event showed an object blocking the rotation of the screen at 112 degrees, however, the impossible event showed screen rotating 180 degrees and passing through the object. As hypothesized, the infants looked longer at the impossible event, allowing Baillargeon (1987) to interpret longer looking times with the infants surprise at the impossible event and refute Piaget theory that an object permanence concept does not appear until an infant is at least 8 months old.
Through a nativist lens these results support the contention that infants have an innate ability to understand the properties of objects and so can form expectations about how objects should interact. Strengthening nativist’s belief, research from Baillargeon (2000) and Bremner’s (2001) publication defend the validity of violation of expectancy interpretations, as each task that they used in their experiments was different, suggesting an innate early knowledge that can be adapted and applied to a variety of scenarios.
However, an empiricist critique of this contention argues that it is unknown if the participants had encountered similar events before, for example, in their home they may have seen objects colliding, allowing them to understand that objects cannot pass through each other, thus, suggesting that the infants were surprised as they had already learned from experience that this was an impossible event.
Moreover, it has been argued that the increased looking time in this experiment could have been due to the similar 180-degree rotation between the habituation event and the impossible event (Rivera, Wakeley, Langer, 1999), henceforth, suggesting that the methodology used was flawed as the habitation event influenced the results.
In combatting these critiques, Wang, Baillargeon and Brueckners’ (2004) study conducted more violation of expectancy experiments and found the results were consistent, however, they omitted the habituation trials in order to extinguish the critiques about habituation influencing the results through similarity. The results remained consistent with their previous findings, and dismissed the refutations of Rivera et al., (1999)
Despite nativists being able to defend their position toward object permanence relatively well, they do not have such an easy task doing the same when faced with the number concept. Their argument presents Wynn’s (1992) study, which used 32 infants with an average age of 5 months. They were split into to groups of sixteen and put into either the “1+1” condition or the “2-1” condition. Baseline looking time was taken by allowing the infants to look at either a single object or two objects, depending on their condition, before occluding them with a retractable screen. Progressing, the first experiment presented infants in the “1+1” condition with one object before occluding it with the screen. Next the infant was exposed to a human hand holding a second object and maneuvering it behind the aforementioned screen before retracting empty handed. The infants were then shown two outcomes; one possible, which exposed two objects, and one impossible, showing one object. The results found that children looked longer at the impossible event. The same was found in the second experiment which utilized the “2-1” condition, wherein the experiment was reversed for subtraction as opposed to addition. Wynn interpreted the results as the infant’s understanding that there should be more or less than the original number of objects; depending on what condition they were in. These results are supportive of a nativist perspective, as they argue that the infants must have conducted mathematical calculations in order to be surprised that their calculation was wrong. Conversely, an empiricist stance would support Cohen and Marks’ (2002) refutation of Wynn’s (1992) interpretation of the results and contend that infants did not look longer at the impossible event due to surprise, but out of familiarity.
In foresight of such criticism, Wynn (1992) had conducted a third experiment with 16 infants to see if they knew not only that 1+1 should be greater than one but if they know precisely how much. Therefore, she presented infants with one object before occluding it with the screen, and then presented them with two events. One event showed two objects whilst the other showed three objects. They were more surprised at the presentation of three objects, suggesting that they were expecting to only see two. This finding suggests that infants are not only able to distinguish whether there should be more or less or something, but they know precisely how many there should be. This destroys arguments about familiarity affecting the results and strengthens the nativist stance as it suggest an innate mathematical ability, at least when small numbers are involved.
Haith (1998) also contended the interpretation of Wynn’ (1992) results, suggesting a perceptual ability rather than cognitive ability was the cause of the infants longer looking time. However, this is a critique that has not been answered in Wynn’s (1992) study and has proven to be a weakness of the nativist perspective.
Capitalizing on this weakness, empiricist utilize research from Uller and Huntley-Fenner 's (as cited in Haith, 1998) presentation to the Society of Research in Child Development to reinforce their argument which found similar results as Wynn (1995) in their replication experiments using the occlusion method.
However, they also conducted experiments that did not allow the infants to see objects prior to the screen being raised. Instead, there was a screen with nothing behind it, and then infants watched as an object was placed behind it from the left and again from the right. When the screen was lifted and there was only one object there, the infants were not surprised despite seeing two objects being placed behind the screen. This supports the empiricist stance as if numerical ability was an innate concept then the child would have been able to count that two objects were placed behind the screen and show surprise when presented with one, henceforth, empiricists contend that infants have not yet learned how to count. This argument weakens the nativist position as it points out that Wynn’s (1995) study may have simply shown that infants were aware of an objects existence before the screen occluded
it
In conclusion, although researchers use numbers and object permanence to further our understanding of infant’s knowledge, it appears to be a stalemate in the nativist empiricist debate. Both perspectives provide compelling evidence and reasonable criticisms of methodology and interpretations used. However, it appears that the nativists have a far more convincing argument for the concept of object permanence being an innate structure as research supporting their claims has effectively crippled all refutation towards nativist beliefs. This has been done primarily through the replication of violation of expectancy research, which omits the habituation process, allowing nativists to dismiss empiricist claims that familiarity with familiarization with the habituation trials influenced the results. Conversely, the nativist argument in numbers has not been as successful when dealing with the number concept. Despite a convincing argument, the nativists fail to provide the same wealth of research to refute all of the empiricist arguments. Primarily, the greatest weakness to the nativist argument in the domain of numbers is the absence of research to contend with Uller and Huntley-Fenner 's (as cited in Haith, 1998) findings that suggest infants could not count objects but can only perceive them. This by no means suggests that empiricists provide a more convincing argument, on the contrary, of the research provided above it is the only one that has yet to be challenged by nativists as at every other point the nativist perspective effectively and convincingly defended their view from criticism. As a result, the research presented in this essay supports the nativist position more convincingly than the empiricist perspective, however, for the nativist to maintain this position, research should be conducted on the numerical abilities of infants without exposure to objects prior to their occlusion.
References
Baillargeon, R. (1987). Object Permanence in 3 1⁄2 and 4 1⁄2 Month Old Infants. Developmental Psychology, 23, 655-664.
Baillargeon, R. (2000). Reply to Bogartz, Shinskey & Schilling; Schilling; and Cashon & Cohen. Infancy, 1, 447-462.
Bremner, J.G. (2001). Cognitive Development. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
Cohen, L. B., & Marks, K. S. (2002). How infants process addition and subtraction events. Developmental Science, 5, 186-201.
Corman, H. H., & Escalona, S. K. (1969). Stages of Sensorimotor Development: A Replication Study. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development,15, 351-361.
Elkind, D. (1961). Children 's discovery of the conservation of mass, weight, and volume: Piaget Replication Study II. The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 98, 219-227.
Haith, M. M. (1998). Who put the cog in infant cognition? Is rich interpretation too costly?. Infant Behavior and Development, 21, 167 – 179.
Mehler, J. & Dupoux, E. (1994). What Infants Know: The New Cognitive Science of Early Development. Oxford: Blackwell.
Parke, R. D., & Gauvain, M. (2012). Developmental Psychology. Berkshire: McGraw- Hill Education.
Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J. (1954). The Construction of Reality in the Child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Rivera, S.M., Wakeley, A. & Langer, J. (1999). The Drawbridge Phenomenon: Representational Reasoning or Perceptual Preference? Developmental Psychology, 35, 427-435.
Sober, E. (2011). Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards?: Philosophical Essays on Darwin’s Theory. New York. Prometheus Books.
Spelke, E. S. (1998). Nativism, Empiricism and the Origin of Knowledge. Infant Behavior and Development, 21(2), 181 – 200.
Wang, S-h., Baillargeon, R. & Brueckner, L. (2004). Young Infants’ Reasoning About Hidden Objects: Evidence from Violation of Expectation Tasks with Test Trials Only. Cognition, 23, 167-198.
Wynn, K. (1992). Addition and subtraction by human infants. Nature, 358, 749-750.
Wynn, K. (1995). Infants possess a system of numerical knowledge. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4, 172–176.