Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Babies are born with a basic knowledge about the world, and they learn best when things behave contrary to their expectations, according to research published Friday in the journal Science.
In the study, cognitive psychologists Aimee E. Stahl and Lisa Feigenson from Johns Hopkins University demonstrate for the first time that an infant possesses an innate sense about how the world works, and learn best when they are surprised by an object’s behavior.
Baby Einsteins
In their study, Stahl and Feigenson set out to determine how young learners discern between the things that they should learn about and the things that can be ignored. They studied 11-month-old infants and used violations of their expectations as potential learning opportunities.
“The infants were shown events that violated expectations about object behavior or events that were nearly identical but did not violate expectations,” the authors wrote. “The sight of an object that violated expectations enhanced learning and promoted information-seeking behaviors.”
Specifically, when an infant encounters an object that does not behave as expected, they explore it more closely than they would a similar yet predictable object. The element of surprise actually causes them to engage in hypothesis-testing behaviors reflecting the unexpected behavior.
Testing the youngsters’ reaction to unexpected outcomes
“For young learners, the world is an incredibly complex place filled with dynamic stimuli,” explained Feigenson, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the university. “How do learners know what to focus on and learn more about, and what to ignore? Our research suggests that infants use what they already know about the world to form predictions.”
When their predictions about an object are incorrect, the babies take advantage of that behavior as an opportunity for learning, and they do so much better when surprised, she added. They explore it as though they are trying “to figure something out about their world.”
The study involved babies that had not yet learned how to talk and conducted a series of four experiments to evaluate their responses to expectation-defying objects. First, they showed the babies both surprising and predictable situations involving specific items, such as a ball that was rolled down a ramp and was first stopped by a wall, then appeared to go through it.
When Stahl and Feigenson gave the babies new information about the apparently magic ball, the youngsters appeared to learn significantly better. In fact, they showed no signs of learning about the predictable plaything, but with the expectation-defying ball, they chose to investigate it even more than toys that were brand new but had not yet done anything surprising.
Babies test out unusual items
Not only did the babies learn more about the surprising items, they actively worked to better understand them. For example, the researchers said that when infants witnessed t the ball appear to pass through the wall, they started banging the ball on the table in order to test whether or not it was actually a solid object.
When the children observed a different type of unexpected event in which the ball appeared to be hovering in midair, they tested the gravity of the object by dropping it onto the floor. This type of behavior appears to indicate that the infants are testing specific hypotheses about their behaviors.
“The infants’ behaviors are not merely reflexive responses to the novelty of surprising outcomes, but instead reflect deeper attempts to learn about aspects of the world that failed to accord with expectations,” said Stahl, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins.
“Infants are not only equipped with core knowledge about fundamental aspects of the world, but from early in their lives, they harness this knowledge to empower new learning,” she added.
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