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Making Sense of Infants' Differential Responses to Incongruity
Gina C Mireault1, Vasudevi Reddy2
1Northern Vermont University-Johnson, Johnson, VT, USA.
Human Development
|July 23, 2021
Summary
Infants
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Infants exhibit distinct reactions, looking or smiling, to incongruent events.
- These reactions are linked to "magical" versus humorous events, respectively.
- Existing research on infant incongruity responses remains largely siloed.
Purpose of the Study:
- To reconcile divergent findings in infant incongruity research.
- To investigate the impact of experimental methodology on infant reactions.
- To apply the Participatory Sense-Making framework to infant incongruity paradigms.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of methodologies in infant "looking" and "smiling" studies.
- Comparison of experimental paradigms, including the Violation of Expectation (VOE) paradigm.
- Application of the Participatory Sense-Making framework to understand infant sensitivity to context.
Main Results:
- Infant reactions to incongruity are significantly influenced by methodological variations.
- Contextual differences in experimental setups "afford" either looking or smiling responses.
- The Violation of Expectation (VOE) paradigm's methodology shapes infant responses.
Conclusions:
- Infants are sensitive to methodological nuances in incongruity research.
- Methodological details critically influence whether infants look or smile at unexpected events.
- Reconciling divergent findings requires careful attention to experimental design in infant studies.
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