Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 22, 2025

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
What we don't know about what babies know: Reconsidering psychophysics, exploration, and infant behavior
Karen E Adolph1, Mark A Schmuckler2
1Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA karen.adolph@nyu.eduhttps://www.nyuactionlab.com/.
None:
Researchers must infer "what babies know" based on what babies do. Thus, to maximize information from doing, researchers should use tasks and tools that capture the richness of infants' behaviors. We clarify Gibson's views about the richness of infants' behavior and their exploration in the service of guiding action - what Gibson called "learning about affordances."
Related Concept Videos
The Nativist Approach
Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development
Cognitivism
Previously dominated by behaviorism, which prioritized observable behaviors and largely ignored mental processes, psychology transformed in the 1950s. Cognitive psychologists argue that understanding how we think and process...
Behaviorism
The core premise of behaviorism is its focus on observable behavior rather than internal thoughts or feelings. This approach argues that true scientific...
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development from Childhood into Adulthood
Schemata: Building Blocks of...
Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition

