MacLean D J, Schuler M
Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Child Dev. 1989 Oct;60(5):1126-37.
In each of 2 experiments, 2 measures were used to assess infants' understanding of the concept of "containment." After being habituated to videotaped episodes of sand being poured into and out of a cylinder, infants saw a "possible" event and then an "impossible" event. Infants who understand containment were expected to look longer at the "impossible" event. In the second test, infants were involved in a game of dropping blocks into a cup. In Experiment 1, 14-month-olds were contrasted with 20-month-olds to establish that the latter but not the former demonstrate an understanding of containment on both tasks. This age effect was obtained. In Experiment 2, we examined whether this understanding could be acquired by 14-month-olds. 50 infants were randomly assigned to 5 training conditions. 1 condition was effective in leading to the development of an understanding of containment: Infants who played with both cans and tubes in their home for 1 month performed in both tests similarly to untrained 20-month-olds.
在两项实验中，均使用了两种测量方法来评估婴儿对“容纳”概念的理解。在习惯了沙子倒入圆柱形容器并从其中倒出的录像片段后，婴儿先看到一个“可能”的事件，然后是一个“不可能”的事件。预计理解容纳概念的婴儿会对“不可能”的事件注视更长时间。在第二项测试中，婴儿参与了将积木放入杯子的游戏。在实验1中，对14个月大的婴儿和20个月大的婴儿进行了对比，以确定只有后者而非前者在两项任务中都表现出对容纳的理解。获得了这种年龄效应。在实验2中，我们研究了14个月大的婴儿是否能够获得这种理解。50名婴儿被随机分配到5种训练条件中。有一种条件有效地促进了对容纳的理解：在家中玩罐子和管子1个月的婴儿在两项测试中的表现与未经训练的20个月大的婴儿相似。
