Object permanence
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Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Without this concept, there is no differentiation between the self and world. Objects would have no separate, permanent existence. This is why Piaget argued that object permanence is one of an infant's most important accomplishments.[1]
Jean Piaget concluded that infants develop this understanding by the end of the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development, which lasts from birth to about 2 years of age. In this period infants are able to understand the world by coordinating sensory experiences, such as seeing and hearing, with physical, motoric actions.[1]
Piaget conducted experiments which consisted of behavioral tests with infant subjects. He studied object permanence by watching an infant's reaction when a desirable object or toy, for example, disappeared. Some of the infant subjects would immediately exhibit signs of confusion or dismay. Piaget interpreted these behavioral signs as evidence of a belief that the object had somehow "vanished" or simply ceased to exist. If an infant searched for the object, it is assumed that they believed it continued to exist. [1]
Piaget concluded that some infants were too young to understand object permanence, which would tend to explain why they do not cry when their mothers were gone ("out of sight, out of mind").[2] A lack of object permanence can lead to A-not-B errors, 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. [1] 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-and-B errors do not always show up consistently (Sophian, 1985). 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. [1]
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 of object persisting when out of sight. One study that focused on object permanence (Baillargoen & 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. Infants as young as 3 1/2 months of age looked longer at the impossible event than at the possible event. This indicated that they were surprised by the impossible event, which suggested that they remembered not only the toy mouse still existed (object permanence) but its location. This reseach indicates that infants are able to develop object permanence earlier than Piaget proposed. [1]
One critism of Piaget's theory was 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. [1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g Santrock, John W. A Topical Approach to Life-Span Development.4th ed. New York City: McGraw Hill, 2008.
- ^ What is Object Permanence?
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
www.psych.uiuc.edu/~rbaillar/ICL/iclPaper.pdf Baillargeon lab screen
