Object permanence
Encyclopedia
Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. It is acquired by human infants between 8 and 12 months of age via the process of logical induction to help them develop secondary schemes in their sensori-motor coordination. This step is the essential foundation of the memory and the memorization process.
Jean Piaget
argued that object permanence is one of an infant's most important accomplishments, as without this concept, objects would have no separate, permanent existence. In Piaget's theory of cognitive development infants develop this understanding by the end of the "sensorimotor stage," which lasts from birth to about 2 years of age.
Piaget thought that an infant's perception and understanding of the world depended on their motor development, which was required for the infant to link visual, tactile and motor representations of objects. According to this view, it is through touching and handling objects that infants develop object permanence.
conducted experiments that collected behavioral tests on infants. Piaget studied object permanence by observing infants' reactions when a favorite object or toy was presented and then was covered with a blanket or removed from sight. An infant that has started to develop object permanence might reach for the toy or try and grab the blanket off the toy. Infants that have not yet developed might appeared confused. Piaget interpreted these behavioral signs as evidence of a belief that the object had somehow "vanished" or simply ceased to exist. Reactions of most infants that had already started developing object permanence were of frustration because they knew it existed, but didn't know where it was. However, the reaction of infants that had not yet started developing object permanence was more oblivious. If an infant searched for the object, it is assumed that they believed it continued to exist.
Piaget concluded that some infants were too young to understand object permanence, which would explain why they do not cry when their mothers were gone ("out of sight, out of mind"). A lack of object permanence can lead to A-not-B error
s, where children reach for a thing at a place where it should not be. "A-not-B error" is the term used to describe an infant's inclination to search for a hidden object in a familiar location rather than search for the object in a different location. Older infants are less likely to make the A-not-B error because they are able to understand the concept of object permanence more than younger infants. However, researchers have found that A-not-B errors do not always show up consistently. They concluded that this type of error might be due to a failure in memory or the fact that infants usually tend to repeat a previous motor behavior.
Baillargeon & DeVos (1991) showed infants a toy car that moved down an inclined track, disappeared behind a screen, and then reemerged at the other end, still on the track. The researchers created a "possible event" where a toy mouse was placed behind the tracks but was hidden by the screen as the car rolled by. Then, researchers created an "impossible event." In this situation, the toy mouse was placed on the tracks but was secretly removed after the screen was lowered so that the car seemed to go through the mouse. Also in the 1991 study the researchers used an experiment involving two differently sized carrots (one tall and one short) in order to test the infants response when the carrots would be moved behind a short wall. The wall was specifically designed to make the short carrot disappear (possible event), as well as tested the infants for habituation patterns on the disappearance of the tall carrot behind the wall (impossible event). Infants as young as 3½ months displayed greater stimulation toward the impossible event and much more habituation at the possible event. This indicated that they may have been surprised by the impossible event, which suggested they remembered not only that the toy mouse still existed (object permanence) but also its location. The same was true of the tall carrot in the second experiment. This research suggests that infants understand more about objects earlier than Piaget proposed.
There are primarily four challenges to his framework:
1. Whether or not infants without disabilities actually demonstrate object permanence earlier than Piaget claimed. (Kaldy and Sigala, 2004; Mervis and Cardoso-Martins, 1984; Riviere and Lecuyer, 2003).
2. There is disagreement about the relative levels of difficulty posed by the use of various types of covers and by different object positions. (Bower, 1975; Dunst, Brooks, and Doxsey, 1982; Lucas and Uzgiris, 1977).
3. Contoversy concerns whether or not object permanence can be achieved or measured without the motor acts that Piaget regarded as essential. (Baird et al., 2002; Bower and Wishart, 1972; Moore and Meltzoff, 2004; Rose, Feldman, and Jankowski, 2005).
4. The nature of inferences that can be made about the A-not-B error has been challenged. Studies that have contributed to this discussion have examined the contribution of memory limitations, difficulty with spatial localisation,and difficulty in inhibiting the motor act of reaching to location A on the A-not-B error. (Baillargeon and DeVos, 1991).
One criticism of Piaget's theory is that culture and education exert stronger influences on a child's development than Piaget maintained. These factors depend on how much practice their culture provides in developmental processes, such as conversational skills.
to gather neuroimaging data from infants suggests that activity in the frontal cortex is associated with successful completion of object permanence tasks.
However, many other types of animals have been shown to have the ability for object permanence. These include dogs, cats, and a few species of birds such as the carrion crow and food-storing magpies
. Dogs are able to reach a level of object permanence that allows them to find food after it has been hidden beneath one of two cups and rotated 90°. Similarly, cats are able to understand object permanence but not to the same extent that dogs can. Cats fail to understand that if they see something go into an apparatus in one direction that it will still be there if the cat tries to enter from another direction. A longitudinal study
found that carrion crows
were able to reach the same level of object permanence as humans. There was only one task, task 15, that the crows were not able to master. Another study tested the comparison of how long it took food-storing magpies to develop the object permanence necessary for them to be able to live independently. The research suggests that these magpies followed the a very similar pattern as human infants while they were developing.
1) 0–1 months: Reflex Schema Stage - Baby learns how the body can move and work. Vision is blurred and attention spans remain short through infancy. They aren't particularly aware of objects to know they have disappeared from sight. However, babies as young as 7 minutes old prefer to look at faces. The three primary achievements of this stage are: sucking, visual tracking, and hand closure.
2) 1–4 months: Primary Circular Reactions - Babies notice objects and start following their movements. They continue to look where an object was, but for only a few moments. They 'discover' their eyes, arms, hands and feet in the course of acting on objects. This stage is marked by responses to familiar images and sounds (including mother's face) and anticipatory responses to familiar events (such as opening the mouth for a spoon). The infant's actions become less reflexive and intentionality emerges.
3) 4–8 months: Secondary Circular Reactions - Babies will reach for an object that is partially hidden, indicating knowledge that the whole object is still there. If an object is completely hidden however the baby makes no attempt to retrieve it. The infant learns to coordinate vision and comprehension. Actions are intentional but the child tends to repeat similar actions on the same object. Novel behaviors are not yet imitated.
4) 8–12 months: Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions - This is deemed the most important for the cognitive development of the child. At this stage the child understands causality and is goal directed. The very earliest understanding of object permanence emerges, as the child is now able to retrieve an object when its concealment is observed. This stage is associated with the classic A-not-B error. After successfully retrieving a hidden object at one location (A), the child fails to retrieve it at a second location (B).
5) 12–18 months: Tertiary Circular Reaction - The child gains means-end knowledge and is able to solve new problems. The child is now able to retrieve an object when it is hidden several times within his or her view, but cannot locate it when it is outside their perceptual field.
6) 18–24 months: Invention of New Means Through Mental Combination - the child fully understands object permanence. They will not fall for A-not-B errors. Also, baby is able to understand the concept of items that are hidden in containers. If a toy is hidden in a matchbox then the matchbox put under a pillow and then, without the child seeing, the toy is slipped out of the matchbox and the matchbox then given to the child, the child will look under the pillow upon discovery that it is not in the matchbox. The child is able to develop a mental image, hold it in mind, and manipulate it to solve problems, including object permanence problems that are not based solely on perception. The child can now reason about where the object may be when invisible displacement occurs.
There is some contradicting evidence found by other cognitive development experts Baillargeon and DeVos. Throughout their studies they put together different scenarios, some of which were possible and others impossible. They found while observing infants watching these scenarios, that the infants took more interest in the impossible situations. With their findings they believe that infants learn object permanence even quicker than Jean Piaget's theory states. Also, object permanence is not only studied in humans, it has been experimented on other species such as; monkeys, dogs, cats, and a few types of birds. Dogs develop the best understanding of object permanence than the other species. Dogs are able to find their food after it has been hidden under one of two cups and rotated 90°. In conclusion, there are many different theories that prove that object permanence not only exists, but affects all humans and many species early stages of learning.
Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
argued that object permanence is one of an infant's most important accomplishments, as without this concept, objects would have no separate, permanent existence. In Piaget's theory of cognitive development infants develop this understanding by the end of the "sensorimotor stage," which lasts from birth to about 2 years of age.
Piaget thought that an infant's perception and understanding of the world depended on their motor development, which was required for the infant to link visual, tactile and motor representations of objects. According to this view, it is through touching and handling objects that infants develop object permanence.
Early research
Child development expert Jean PiagetJean Piaget
Jean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
conducted experiments that collected behavioral tests on infants. Piaget studied object permanence by observing infants' reactions when a favorite object or toy was presented and then was covered with a blanket or removed from sight. An infant that has started to develop object permanence might reach for the toy or try and grab the blanket off the toy. Infants that have not yet developed might appeared confused. Piaget interpreted these behavioral signs as evidence of a belief that the object had somehow "vanished" or simply ceased to exist. Reactions of most infants that had already started developing object permanence were of frustration because they knew it existed, but didn't know where it was. However, the reaction of infants that had not yet started developing object permanence was more oblivious. If an infant searched for the object, it is assumed that they believed it continued to exist.
Piaget concluded that some infants were too young to understand object permanence, which would explain why they do not cry when their mothers were gone ("out of sight, out of mind"). A lack of object permanence can lead to A-not-B error
A-not-B error
A-not-B error is a phenomenon uncovered by the work of Jean Piaget in his theory of cognitive development of children. The A-not-B error is a particular error made by infants during substage 4 of their sensorimotor stage.A typical task goes like this: An experimenter hides an attractive toy under...
s, where children reach for a thing at a place where it should not be. "A-not-B error" is the term used to describe an infant's inclination to search for a hidden object in a familiar location rather than search for the object in a different location. Older infants are less likely to make the A-not-B error because they are able to understand the concept of object permanence more than younger infants. However, researchers have found that A-not-B errors do not always show up consistently. They concluded that this type of error might be due to a failure in memory or the fact that infants usually tend to repeat a previous motor behavior.
Contradicting Evidence
In more recent years, the original Piagetian object permanence account has been challenged by a series of infant studies suggesting that much younger infants do have a clear sense that objects exist even when out of sight. Bower (1974) demonstrated object permanence in 3-month-olds.Baillargeon & DeVos (1991) showed infants a toy car that moved down an inclined track, disappeared behind a screen, and then reemerged at the other end, still on the track. The researchers created a "possible event" where a toy mouse was placed behind the tracks but was hidden by the screen as the car rolled by. Then, researchers created an "impossible event." In this situation, the toy mouse was placed on the tracks but was secretly removed after the screen was lowered so that the car seemed to go through the mouse. Also in the 1991 study the researchers used an experiment involving two differently sized carrots (one tall and one short) in order to test the infants response when the carrots would be moved behind a short wall. The wall was specifically designed to make the short carrot disappear (possible event), as well as tested the infants for habituation patterns on the disappearance of the tall carrot behind the wall (impossible event). Infants as young as 3½ months displayed greater stimulation toward the impossible event and much more habituation at the possible event. This indicated that they may have been surprised by the impossible event, which suggested they remembered not only that the toy mouse still existed (object permanence) but also its location. The same was true of the tall carrot in the second experiment. This research suggests that infants understand more about objects earlier than Piaget proposed.
There are primarily four challenges to his framework:
1. Whether or not infants without disabilities actually demonstrate object permanence earlier than Piaget claimed. (Kaldy and Sigala, 2004; Mervis and Cardoso-Martins, 1984; Riviere and Lecuyer, 2003).
2. There is disagreement about the relative levels of difficulty posed by the use of various types of covers and by different object positions. (Bower, 1975; Dunst, Brooks, and Doxsey, 1982; Lucas and Uzgiris, 1977).
3. Contoversy concerns whether or not object permanence can be achieved or measured without the motor acts that Piaget regarded as essential. (Baird et al., 2002; Bower and Wishart, 1972; Moore and Meltzoff, 2004; Rose, Feldman, and Jankowski, 2005).
4. The nature of inferences that can be made about the A-not-B error has been challenged. Studies that have contributed to this discussion have examined the contribution of memory limitations, difficulty with spatial localisation,and difficulty in inhibiting the motor act of reaching to location A on the A-not-B error. (Baillargeon and DeVos, 1991).
One criticism of Piaget's theory is that culture and education exert stronger influences on a child's development than Piaget maintained. These factors depend on how much practice their culture provides in developmental processes, such as conversational skills.
Object Permanence in More Than Humans
Experiments in non-human primates suggest that monkeys can track the displacement of invisible targets, that invisible displacement is represented in the prefrontal cortex, and that development of the frontal cortex is linked to the acquisition of object permanence. Various evidence from human infants is consistent with this. For example, formation of synapses in the frontal cortex peaks during human infancy, and recent experiments using near infrared spectroscopyNear infrared spectroscopy
Near-infrared spectroscopy is a spectroscopic method that uses the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum...
to gather neuroimaging data from infants suggests that activity in the frontal cortex is associated with successful completion of object permanence tasks.
However, many other types of animals have been shown to have the ability for object permanence. These include dogs, cats, and a few species of birds such as the carrion crow and food-storing magpies
Magpie
Magpies are passerine birds of the crow family, Corvidae.In Europe, "magpie" is often used by English speakers as a synonym for the European Magpie, as there are no other magpies in Europe outside Iberia...
. Dogs are able to reach a level of object permanence that allows them to find food after it has been hidden beneath one of two cups and rotated 90°. Similarly, cats are able to understand object permanence but not to the same extent that dogs can. Cats fail to understand that if they see something go into an apparatus in one direction that it will still be there if the cat tries to enter from another direction. A longitudinal study
Longitudinal study
A longitudinal study is a correlational research study that involves repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time — often many decades. It is a type of observational study. Longitudinal studies are often used in psychology to study developmental trends across the...
found that carrion crows
Carrion Crow
The Carrion Crow is a member of the passerine order of birds and the crow family which is native to western Europe and eastern Asia.-Taxonomy:...
were able to reach the same level of object permanence as humans. There was only one task, task 15, that the crows were not able to master. Another study tested the comparison of how long it took food-storing magpies to develop the object permanence necessary for them to be able to live independently. The research suggests that these magpies followed the a very similar pattern as human infants while they were developing.
Stages in Object Permanence
There are six stages of Object Permanence (see Sensorimotor period for more detail). These are:1) 0–1 months: Reflex Schema Stage - Baby learns how the body can move and work. Vision is blurred and attention spans remain short through infancy. They aren't particularly aware of objects to know they have disappeared from sight. However, babies as young as 7 minutes old prefer to look at faces. The three primary achievements of this stage are: sucking, visual tracking, and hand closure.
2) 1–4 months: Primary Circular Reactions - Babies notice objects and start following their movements. They continue to look where an object was, but for only a few moments. They 'discover' their eyes, arms, hands and feet in the course of acting on objects. This stage is marked by responses to familiar images and sounds (including mother's face) and anticipatory responses to familiar events (such as opening the mouth for a spoon). The infant's actions become less reflexive and intentionality emerges.
3) 4–8 months: Secondary Circular Reactions - Babies will reach for an object that is partially hidden, indicating knowledge that the whole object is still there. If an object is completely hidden however the baby makes no attempt to retrieve it. The infant learns to coordinate vision and comprehension. Actions are intentional but the child tends to repeat similar actions on the same object. Novel behaviors are not yet imitated.
4) 8–12 months: Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions - This is deemed the most important for the cognitive development of the child. At this stage the child understands causality and is goal directed. The very earliest understanding of object permanence emerges, as the child is now able to retrieve an object when its concealment is observed. This stage is associated with the classic A-not-B error. After successfully retrieving a hidden object at one location (A), the child fails to retrieve it at a second location (B).
5) 12–18 months: Tertiary Circular Reaction - The child gains means-end knowledge and is able to solve new problems. The child is now able to retrieve an object when it is hidden several times within his or her view, but cannot locate it when it is outside their perceptual field.
6) 18–24 months: Invention of New Means Through Mental Combination - the child fully understands object permanence. They will not fall for A-not-B errors. Also, baby is able to understand the concept of items that are hidden in containers. If a toy is hidden in a matchbox then the matchbox put under a pillow and then, without the child seeing, the toy is slipped out of the matchbox and the matchbox then given to the child, the child will look under the pillow upon discovery that it is not in the matchbox. The child is able to develop a mental image, hold it in mind, and manipulate it to solve problems, including object permanence problems that are not based solely on perception. The child can now reason about where the object may be when invisible displacement occurs.
Recent Studies
One of the areas of focus on object permanence has been how physical disabilities (blindness and deafness) and intellectual disabilities (Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, etc.) effect the progression and acquisition of object permanence.In a study that was performed in 1975-76, the results showed that the only area where children with intellectual disabilities were surpassed by children without disabilities was along the lines of social interaction. Other tasks, such as gestural imitation and causality tasks, were performed more weakly by the children with disabilities. However, object permanence was still acquired in a similar fashion because they were not related to social interaction. Some psychologists believe that 'while object permanence alone may not predict communicative achievement, object permanence along with several other sensorimotor milestones, plays a critical role in, and interacts with, the communicative development of children with severe disabilities'. In 2006, a study recognized that the full mastery of object permanence is one of the milestones that ties into a child's ability to engage in mental representation. Along with the its relationship with language acquisition, object permanence is also related to the achievement of self-recognition. This same study also focused specifically on the effects that Down syndrome has on object permanence. The findings were: the reason why the children that participated were so successful in acquiring object permanence, was due to their social strength in imitation. Along with imitation being a potential factor in the success, another factor that could impact children with Down syndrome could also be how complient they are.Conclusion
Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Children learn object permanence at a very young age. Jean Piaget is a child development expert that conducted experiments on infants to prove that his theory of object permanence exists. According to Piaget's theory infants start to learn object permanence during the Sensorimotor Stage, which starts at birth and goes till 2 years of age. Jean Piaget categorizes object permanence into eight different stages which are; Reflex Schema Stage, Primary Circular Reactions, Secondary Circular Reactions, Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions, Tertiary Circular Reactions, and Invention of New Means Through Mental Combination. Those eight stages make up a fraction of the Sensorimotor Stage. Throughout the Sensorimotor Stage infants attain knowledge by manipulating objects around them. While playing with different objects they are also gaining practical knowledge about the effects of their actions, such as pushing and grabbing objects. Object permanence is a major mile stone infants attain during the end of the Sensorimotor Stage. Infants start realizing that objects still exist even though the object cannot be heard, touched, or seen.There is some contradicting evidence found by other cognitive development experts Baillargeon and DeVos. Throughout their studies they put together different scenarios, some of which were possible and others impossible. They found while observing infants watching these scenarios, that the infants took more interest in the impossible situations. With their findings they believe that infants learn object permanence even quicker than Jean Piaget's theory states. Also, object permanence is not only studied in humans, it has been experimented on other species such as; monkeys, dogs, cats, and a few types of birds. Dogs develop the best understanding of object permanence than the other species. Dogs are able to find their food after it has been hidden under one of two cups and rotated 90°. In conclusion, there are many different theories that prove that object permanence not only exists, but affects all humans and many species early stages of learning.