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Two‐year‐olds’ naîve predictions for horizontal trajectories
Author(s) -
Hood Bruce M.,
Santos Laurie,
Fieselman Susan
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-7687.00127
Subject(s) - psychology , falling (accident) , horizontal plane , horizontal line test , object (grammar) , horizontal and vertical , line (geometry) , set (abstract data type) , vertical plane , interpretation (philosophy) , cognitive psychology , geodesy , geometry , artificial intelligence , mathematics , geology , computer science , telecommunications , psychiatry , programming language
Hood recently reported that preschool children overgeneralized the prediction that falling objects travel in a straight line in spite of extensive counter‐evidence that the object had been deviated to a non‐aligned box by a tube. This behaviour was interpreted as a naı^ve theory of gravity resulting from an overgeneralization derived from experience of falling objects. The current study set out to test whether there was also a significant tendency for 2‐year‐olds to predict that objects travel in a straight line in the horizontal plane. This was achieved by comparing search for an invisibly displaced object moving either vertically or horizontally. The findings confirmed a gravity bias for falling events but did not reveal a similar tendency in the horizontal condition. In the horizontal task, children were as likely to search at an incorrect non‐aligned box as an aligned incorrect box. This supports the interpretation of a naı^ve gravity bias present from at least 2 years of age.