TY - CHAP
T1 - Beyond the "Couch Potato" Infant
T2 - How Infants Use Their Knowledge to Regulate Action, Solve Problems, and Achieve Goals
AU - Willatts, Peter
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 1997 by Psychology Press, an imprint of Erlbaum (UK) Taylor & Francis Ltd.
PY - 2026/5/1
Y1 - 2026/5/1
N2 - The last 10 years have been an exciting period for researchers studying the development of infant cognition. New work has established that young infants appear to possess a core of knowledge about the basic principles of the physical world, such as solidity, causality, trajectory, and number (see Baillargeon, 1993; Leslie, 1988; Mandler, 1992; Meltzoff, 1990; Spelke, Breinlinger, Macomber, & Jacobson, 1992 for reviews). This core of knowledge allows infants to interpret and anticipate the immediate outcome of physical events. Infants appear to know that solid objects should not pass through each other, should not hang in mid-air without a visible means of support, and that objects moving on a trajectory follow a continuous path and do not jump mysteriously from one place to another. There is also abundant evidence that young infants can represent the existence of hidden objects, and that their representations specify not only the continued existence of an object, but also include information about position, size, physical properties such as rigidity and flexibility, and even number.
AB - The last 10 years have been an exciting period for researchers studying the development of infant cognition. New work has established that young infants appear to possess a core of knowledge about the basic principles of the physical world, such as solidity, causality, trajectory, and number (see Baillargeon, 1993; Leslie, 1988; Mandler, 1992; Meltzoff, 1990; Spelke, Breinlinger, Macomber, & Jacobson, 1992 for reviews). This core of knowledge allows infants to interpret and anticipate the immediate outcome of physical events. Infants appear to know that solid objects should not pass through each other, should not hang in mid-air without a visible means of support, and that objects moving on a trajectory follow a continuous path and do not jump mysteriously from one place to another. There is also abundant evidence that young infants can represent the existence of hidden objects, and that their representations specify not only the continued existence of an object, but also include information about position, size, physical properties such as rigidity and flexibility, and even number.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105040284381
U2 - 10.4324/9781003753063-9
DO - 10.4324/9781003753063-9
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:105040284381
SN - 9781041271659
SN - 9781041271703
T3 - Psychology Revivals
SP - 109
EP - 135
BT - Coresource 4
A2 - Bremner, Gavin
A2 - Slater, Alan
A2 - Butterworth, George
PB - Taylor and Francis - Balkema
CY - Hove
ER -