Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task
11:18

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task

Published on: June 1, 2015

Young infants' actions reveal their developing knowledge of support variables: converging evidence for

Susan J Hespos1, Renée Baillargeon

  • 1Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208-2710, USA. hespos@northwestern.edu

Cognition
|September 11, 2007
PubMed

Insights

Infants demonstrate knowledge of object support by 5.5 months. Action tasks reveal similar developmental patterns in physical understanding as violation-of-expectation (VOE) tasks.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Infant Perception
  • Physics Understanding

Background:

  • Violation-of-expectation (VOE) tasks show infants understand object support by specific ages.
  • Previous research indicates infants expect objects to fall when unsupported or minimally supported.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if action tasks reveal similar developmental patterns in infants' understanding of object support as VOE tasks.
  • To determine if infants use support knowledge to infer object retrievability.

Main Methods:

  • Infants were presented with toys in different support conditions (on vs. against a surface, 15% vs. 100% bottom contact).
  • Researchers observed infants' reaching behaviors as an indicator of their physical knowledge.
  • Control findings were incorporated to strengthen the interpretation of the results.

Main Results:

  • 5.5- and 6.5-month-olds preferred toys resting on a surface over those against it.
  • 6.5-month-olds, but not 5.5-month-olds, preferred toys with 100% bottom contact over 15% contact.
  • Infants' choices indicated they assessed object stability and potential irretrievability.

Conclusions:

  • Action tasks confirm developmental patterns in infants' physical knowledge previously observed in VOE tasks.
  • Infants utilize support knowledge to predict object behavior and retrievability.
  • VOE and action tasks likely measure the same underlying physical knowledge in infants.

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