Preferential looking
Encyclopedia
Preferential looking is an experimental method in developmental psychology
used to gain insight into the young mind
/brain
. The method as used today was developed by the developmental psychologist Robert L. Frantz in the 1960s.
and developmental psychology
to assess the character of infant's perceptual systems, and, by extension, innate cognitive faculties.
that infants possess. For example, if infants discriminate between rule-following and rule-violating stimuli—say, by looking longer, on average, at the former than the latter—then it has sometimes been concluded that infants know the rule.
Here is an example: 100 infants are shown an object that appears to teleport
, violating the rule that objects move in continuous paths. Another 100 similar infants are shown an object that behaves in a nearly identical manner to the object from group 1, except that this object does not teleport. If this stimulus induces longer looking times than similar stimuli that do not involve teleportation, then, so the argument goes, infants expect that objects obey the continuity rule, and are surprised when they violate this rule. Some researchers have suggested, of some such experiments, that infants have innate knowledge of those rules the violation of which they can perceptually discriminate.
Common criticisms of this innateness thesis include that the infant has already acquired enough experience of non-teleporting objects to justify its surprise, and that teleporting objects are attention-grabbing for reasons other than expectancy violation.
Findings from preferential looking experiments have suggested that humans innately possess sets of beliefs about how objects interact ("folk physics" or "folk mechanics") and about how animate beings interact ("folk psychology
").
Preferential looking experiments have been cited in support of hypotheses regarding a wide range of inborn cognitive capacities, including:
Developmental psychology
Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...
used to gain insight into the young mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
/brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
. The method as used today was developed by the developmental psychologist Robert L. Frantz in the 1960s.
General account
In a preferential looking experiment, an infant is habituated to some stimulus or other—a visual display of interacting objects, for example. Then the infant is shown a second stimulus that differs from the first in a specific manner. If the average infant looks longer at the second stimulus, this suggests that the infant can discriminate between the stimuli. This method has been used extensively in cognitive scienceCognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
and developmental psychology
Developmental psychology
Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...
to assess the character of infant's perceptual systems, and, by extension, innate cognitive faculties.
Summary of findings
Conclusions have been drawn from preferential looking experiments about the knowledgeKnowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
that infants possess. For example, if infants discriminate between rule-following and rule-violating stimuli—say, by looking longer, on average, at the former than the latter—then it has sometimes been concluded that infants know the rule.
Here is an example: 100 infants are shown an object that appears to teleport
Teleportation
Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...
, violating the rule that objects move in continuous paths. Another 100 similar infants are shown an object that behaves in a nearly identical manner to the object from group 1, except that this object does not teleport. If this stimulus induces longer looking times than similar stimuli that do not involve teleportation, then, so the argument goes, infants expect that objects obey the continuity rule, and are surprised when they violate this rule. Some researchers have suggested, of some such experiments, that infants have innate knowledge of those rules the violation of which they can perceptually discriminate.
Common criticisms of this innateness thesis include that the infant has already acquired enough experience of non-teleporting objects to justify its surprise, and that teleporting objects are attention-grabbing for reasons other than expectancy violation.
Findings from preferential looking experiments have suggested that humans innately possess sets of beliefs about how objects interact ("folk physics" or "folk mechanics") and about how animate beings interact ("folk psychology
Folk psychology
Folk psychology is the set of assumptions, constructs, and convictions that makes up the everyday language in which people discuss human psychology...
").
Preferential looking experiments have been cited in support of hypotheses regarding a wide range of inborn cognitive capacities, including:
- Depth perceptionDepth perceptionDepth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions and the distance of an object. Depth sensation is the ability to move accurately, or to respond consistently, based on the distances of objects in an environment....
- Face perceptionFace perceptionFace perception is the process by which the brain and mind understand and interpret the face, particularly the human face.The human face's proportions and expressions are important to identify origin, emotional tendencies, health qualities, and some social information. From birth, faces are...
- Basic arithmetic (numeracy)
Extended example
The well-documented and often referred to example of Du Plaus (1972) involved a child of tender years playing with three differently colored pigeons. The child would almost always (93% of the time) spend more time feeding and playing with the brown pigeon, and substantially less time doing those same activities with the red and yellow pigeons. Du Plaus suggested that this was the result of children being genetically coded to prefer brown pigeons over red and yellow pigeons.Labs using preferential looking
- http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~cfisher/LALAB/Projects.html#syntax