#5 - Researchers have found that, hours after birth, infants

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Resolve the Paradox. The correct answer choice is (A)

The stimulus states that researchers have found that infants can distinguish faces from other images just hours after birth. As evidence, the stimulus states that infants stare are drawings of faces for longer periods than they do at similar non-face images.

The question stem asks you to explain how newborn infants would be able to make this distinction.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. If facial recognition is innate, then infants are born with the ability to recognize faces.

Answer choice (B): This answer does not address how the infants distinguish the faces from other images, and it does not explain why they stare at the faces for longer periods than they do at the scrambled face images.

Answer choice (C): If infants learn to make the association stated in this answer choice, then they would need time to make that association. Thus, this answer cannot explain why infants can recognize faces just hours after birth.

Answer choice (D): This answer is similar to answer choice (B). This answer does not address how the infants distinguish the faces from other images, and it does not explain why they stare at the faces for longer periods than they do at the scrambled face images.

Answer choice (E): If infants learn to make the association stated in this answer choice, then they would need time to make that association. Thus, this answer cannot explain why infants can recognize faces just hours after birth.

[TOgren2424]

To show answer (C) is wrong doesn't it require the assumption that babies cannot learn facial recognition within a few hours. Why couldn't that be the case? To answer my own question, I guess it comes down to having an innate ability "absolutely" explains it, where as C requires the extra assumption that they have that ability within a few hours after birth. Is my reasoning correct?

[AthenaDalton]

Hi TOgren,

Yes, your reasoning is on point.

Answer choice (A) gives us a tidy solution to this apparent paradox without the need to make additional assumptions -- babies are born with this innate ability, so it's no surprise that they put it to use immediately after birth.

By contrast answer choice (C), which says that infants "learn to associate human faces with the necessities of comfort and nourishment," would require us to make additional assumptions that are not listed in the answer choice. We would have to assume that infants make the associations between faces, comfort and nourishment within a few hours. Answer choice (C) doesn't indicate that infants make this association within hours, so it's not quite enough to resolve the apparent paradox presented in this question.

Good thinking, and keep up the good work!

Athena Dalton

[oli_oops]

Complete Question Explanation

Resolve the Paradox. The correct answer choice is (A)

The stimulus states that researchers have found that infants can distinguish faces from other images just hours after birth. As evidence, the stimulus states that infants stare are drawings of faces for longer periods than they do at similar non-face images.

The question stem asks you to explain how newborn infants would be able to make this distinction.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. If facial recognition is innate, then infants are born with the ability to recognize faces.

Answer choice (B): This answer does not address how the infants distinguish the faces from other images, and it does not explain why they stare at the faces for longer periods than they do at the scrambled face images.

Answer choice (C): If infants learn to make the association stated in this answer choice, then they would need time to make that association. Thus, this answer cannot explain why infants can recognize faces just hours after birth.

Answer choice (D): This answer is similar to answer choice (B). This answer does not address how the infants distinguish the faces from other images, and it does not explain why they stare at the faces for longer periods than they do at the scrambled face images.

Answer choice (E): If infants learn to make the association stated in this answer choice, then they would need time to make that association. Thus, this answer cannot explain why infants can recognize faces just hours after birth.

hello,
Thank you for posting this. Though, can someone please explain how this is categorized as a "Resolve the Paradox" question? Is it because the "hours after birth" vs. "stare at drawings of faces for longer..."?
Also, I did not choose A because I didn't think A explained why infant stare at drawings of faces for longer periods of time than they do at blank ovals or drawings....
Though A was a contender.

Thank you!!
oli

[Malila Robinson]

Hi Oli,
The question stem contains classic 'Resolve the Paradox' phrasing: 'most helps to explain' which is usually followed by a problem. But in this case you have to do a bit more work to determine why 'the ability of newborn infants' would appear to present contradictory possibilities. The contradiction may be easier to understand if you phrase it as "hours after birth" (meaning not much has been learned at this point) vs. 'able to distinguish faces from other things' (which we have no evidence telling us that it is something that learned from the womb).

Answer A says that peopl don't need to learn how to distinguish facial features, it is something we are born with. And that would explain why babies who are hours old can distinguish faces from other objects.
Hope that helps!
Malila

[oli_oops]

Hi Oli,
The question stem contains classic 'Resolve the Paradox' phrasing: 'most helps to explain' which is usually followed by a problem. But in this case you have to do a bit more work to determine why 'the ability of newborn infants' would appear to present contradictory possibilities. The contradiction may be easier to understand if you phrase it as "hours after birth" (meaning not much has been learned at this point) vs. 'able to distinguish faces from other things' (which we have no evidence telling us that it is something that learned from the womb).

Answer A says that peopl don't need to learn how to distinguish facial features, it is something we are born with. And that would explain why babies who are hours old can distinguish faces from other objects.
Hope that helps!
Malila

Hi Malila,

Thank you, this did help. Though I'm still confused about the send part of the stimulus, "Infants stare at drawings of faces for longer periods of time than they do ...are scrambled". What role does this sentence serve? Why would infants stare at faces for longer time if they don't even need time to learn since they are innately able to do so?
This is the bit that seemed very counter-intuitive to me. Would really appreciate some explanation!

Thank you!!
oli

[Charlie Melman]

Hi Oli,

Great question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're assuming that the reason why the infants are looking at images of faces for longer is that they need more time to distinguish those images from images of things other than faces. That's intuitively plausible, but there's no evidence for that in the stimulus. The reason why that sentence is there is to provide evidence for the statement in the first sentence. How do researchers know that infants can distinguish faces from other images? Because they treat images with faces differently from images without faces; namely by looking at images with faces for longer.

Hope this helps!

[flexbubbleboi]

Hi TOgren,

Yes, your reasoning is on point.

Answer choice (A) gives us a tidy solution to this apparent paradox without the need to make additional assumptions -- babies are born with this innate ability, so it's no surprise that they put it to use immediately after birth.

By contrast answer choice (C), which says that infants "learn to associate human faces with the necessities of comfort and nourishment," would require us to make additional assumptions that are not listed in the answer choice. We would have to assume that infants make the associations between faces, comfort and nourishment within a few hours. Answer choice (C) doesn't indicate that infants make this association within hours, so it's not quite enough to resolve the apparent paradox presented in this question.

Good thinking, and keep up the good work!

Athena Dalton

I'm still having trouble with this one -- wouldn't picking choice A require us to assume that the infants are born knowing how to recognize faces, rather than reasoning that they learned how to do this within a few hours? Answer C just says that they learn to do this, it doesn't specify how much time it would take them. Choosing C assumes that infants learned an association, and choosing A assumes the recognition was innate, but I don't see how I can decide to favor one assumption over the other.

[Robert Carroll]

flex,

Remember that this is a Resolve the Paradox question, and part of that is that we trust all the answer choices. In fact, the question asks us "Which one of the following, if true..." so we're not making any assumptions when picking an answer choice. We take every answer as true, and see if that statement resolves the paradox. So when answer choice (A) says that the ability is innate, we're not inferring that from the stimulus, but adding that to the stimulus, with no need to prove it. Because answer choice (A) takes care of the facial recognition immediately, while answer choice (C) requires some non-innate learning to have happened, somehow, in the few hours after birth, answer choice (A) resolves the paradox, and answer choice (C) just raises another question - how did they learn so quickly?

Robert Carroll

[flexbubbleboi]

That makes so much sense!!