PIAGET’S A-NOT-B

THEORY…

True or False?

Amber Reyes, Lauren Villagran, Melissa Avalos, Nanci Gonzalez & Christopher Rincon

BACKGROUND

i. Young infants from the age range of 8-12 months and 12-18

months. Conducting the A-not-B experiment.

ii. Piaget’s Theory

iii. In our own study, we decided to challenge Piaget’s Theory. We

took an object the children enjoyed the most and tested whether

or not it would motivate them to find the object and pass the test.

METHOD

i. Our group recreated Jean Piaget’s A Not B error experiment.

ii. We used Jayleen, Charlotte, and Penelope. Jayleen is our eleven-month old

subject from Lauren's family daycare. Charlotte is our ten-month old subject

and is Lauren’s cousin. Penelope is our seventeen-month old subject and is

Lauren’s niece.

iii. Our group used three female infants, two of the three infants ranging from

the eight to twelve-month range, and one infant from the twelve to eighteen-

month range, to test and see if they would support Piaget’s theory.

TEST SUBJECTS

#1 Penelope Marte

12-18 month old infant

#2 Charlotte Jimenez

8-12 month old infant

TEST SUBJECTS

#3 Jayleen Gomez

8-12 month old infant

QUESTION?

If you were to hide an object a child desires, would they have a

greater chance of passing the A-not-B experiment, rather than an

object they do not desire at all?

EVIDENCE #1

PART 2

RESULTS

Results have shown that subject Penelope, an 12-18 month old

infant, passed the A-not-B experiment. Just as Piaget predicted in his

own studies.

EVIDENCE #2

PART 2

EVIDENCE #3

PART 2

RESULTS

Both Charlotte Jimenez and Jayleen Gomez, infants of 8-12

months, successfully passed the A-not-B experiment. Contradicting

Piaget’s Theory of infants of the age range of 8-12 months would

not pass the experiment.

DISCUSSION

Unexpectedly, the experiment showed a different result from what

Piaget had instated in his theory. Infants of 8-12 months were said to not

be able to pass this task. However, the infants from12-18 months still

proved Piaget’s theory that children of this age can pass the test.

Our results proved that Piaget’s theory had not been completely true.

Even though, Piaget had been right that infants of 12-18 months would

pass, he had been wrong about infants of 8-12 months not being able to

pass due to them not having object permanence.

DISCUSSION

We can conclude from our results that there is a new perspective in

Piaget’s Theory of A not B. Our research shows that if a child is

motivated to find the toy, he/she will be more inclined to find it.

Would other 8-12 month olds keep passing the test if they have

the motivation to do so like the others?

Did Piaget take into account the motivation of the test subjects to

find the required object?

REFERENCES

Scholarly Article: “The Stage IV Error in Piaget’s Theory of

Object Concept. Difficulties in Object Conceptualization or Spatial

Localization?”

-According to psychologist Jean Piaget, children progress through a

series of four critical stages of cognitive development. Each stage is

marked by shifts in how kids understand the world.

REFERENCES

Non-Scholarly Article: “To What Extent can Familiarity and

Learning Prevent the A-not-B Error?”

-Piaget’s theory 8-12 month old infants are more aware to search for

the toy under the first hiding place than the new hiding place

-Piaget’s theory proved that the toy the infants love the most was

unsuccessful because they had a hard time looking for it than with the

unfamiliar toy.

REFERENCES

http://www.reading.ac.uk/psychology/pcls-project-orchard.aspx