Chapter 12. Contingency Learning in Young Infants

Synopsis

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Approximately 5 minutes.

This video shows Carolyn Rovee-Collier’s procedure for studying instrumental learning in young infants. You’ll first view a brief portion of the baseline phase of the procedure, in which the infant is not connected to the mobile. Later on in the segment, watch how the infant, now connected to the mobile, recognizes the new effects of her kicking.

Video

The ability of infants as young as 2 months old to learn contingency relations is strikingly demonstrated in a procedure devised by Carolyn Rovee-Collier. In this procedure, an infant
is placed in a crib that has a mobile dangling overhead.
The experimenter first measures the infant’s normal rate
of kicking over several minutes. Then a ribbon that is connected to the mobile is tied to the infant’s foot. As the infant’s normal kicking continues, the infant quickly perceives the relation between the kicks and the mobile’s movement and begins kicking quite vigorously. In other words, the infant has
learned the contingency between his or her own behavior
and an external event.

Essay Question

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