Object Permanence

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By Dr. Saul McLeod, published 2018, updated 2021

The main development during the sensorimotor stage is the understanding that objects
exist and events occur in the world independently of one's own actions ('the object
concept', or 'object permanence').

Object permanence means knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It
requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e. a schema) of the object.

For example, if you place a toy under a blanket, the child who has achieved object
permanence knows it is there and can actively seek it. At the beginning of this stage the
child behaves as if the toy had simply disappeared.

The attainment of object permanence generally signals the transition from the
sensorimotor stage to the preoperational stage of development.

Blanket and Ball Study

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 Aim: Piaget (1963) wanted to investigate at what age children acquire object
permanence.

Method: Piaget hid a toy under a blanket, while the child was watching, and
observed whether or not the child searched for the hidden toy.

Searching for the hidden toy was evidence of object permanence. Piaget assumed
that the child could only search for a hidden toy if s/he had a mental representation
of it.

Results: Piaget found that infants searched for the hidden toy when they were
around 8-months-old.

Conclusion: Children around 8 months have object permanence because they

are able to form a mental representation of the object in their minds.

Evaluation: Piaget assumed the results of his study occur because the children
under 8 months did not understand that the object still existed underneath the
blanket (and therefore did not reach for it). However, there are alternative reasons
why a child may not search for an object rather than lack of understanding of
situation.

The child could become distracted or lose interest in the object and therefore lack
the motivation to search for it, or simply may not have the physical coordination to
carry out the motor movements necessary for the retrieval of the object (Mehler &
Dupoux, 1994).

The A-not-B Error

The A-not-B error occurs when infants search for a hidden toy at the incorrect location
when presented with two possible locations (Piaget, 1954).

The toy is repeatedly hidden at location A. After a short delay, infants are then allowed to
reach for and retrieve the toy.

After a few trials the toy is then clearly hidden in location B. After a short delay, they are
then allowed to reach for the toy.

Infants 8 to 10 months of age consistently reach to location A despite clearly seeing the
toy hidden at location B.

Critical Evaluation
There is evidence that object permanence occurs earlier than Piaget claimed. Bower
and Wishart (1972) used a lab experiment to study infants aged between 1 – 4 months
old.

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Instead of using a Piaget’s blanket technique they waited for the infant to reach for an
object, and then turned out the lights so that the object was no longer visible. They then
filmed the infant using an infrared camera. They found that the infant continued to reach
for the object for up to 90 seconds after it became invisible.

Again, just like Piaget's study there are also criticisms of Bower's 'reaching in the dark'
findings. Each child had up to 3 minutes to complete the task and reach for the object.
Within this time period, it is plausible they may have successfully completed the task by
accident.

For example, randomly reaching out and finding the object or even reaching out due to
the distress of the lights going out (rather than reaching out with the intention of
searching for an object).

Violation of Expectation Research

A further challenge to Piaget’s claims comes from a series of studies designed by Renee
Baillargeon. She used a technique that has come to be known as the violation of
expectation (VOE) paradigm. It exploits the fact that infants tend to look for longer at
things they have not encountered before.

In a VOE experiment, an infant is first introduced to a novel situation. They are

repeatedly shown this stimulus until they indicate, by looking away, that it is no longer
new to them. In Baillargeon et al’s (1985, 1987) study, the habituation stimulus was a
‘drawbridge’ that moved through 180 degrees.

violation of expectation task with possible and impossible events

The infants are then shown two new stimuli, each of which is a variation on the
habituation stimulus. In Baillargeon’s experiments, one of these test stimuli is a possible
event (i.e. one which could physically happen) and the other is an impossible event (i.e.
one that could not physically happen in the way it appears).

In the ‘drawbridge’ study, a coloured box was placed in the path of the drawbridge. In the
possible event, the drawbridge stopped at the point where its path would be blocked by
the box. In the impossible event, the drawbridge appeared to pass through the box and
ended up lying flat, the box apparently having disappeared.

Baillargeon found that infants spent much longer looking at the impossible event. She
concluded that this indicated surprise on the infants’ part and that the infants were
surprised because they had expectations about the behavior of physical objects that the
impossible event had violated.

In other words, the infants knew that the box still existed behind the drawbridge and,
furthermore, that they knew that one solid object cannot just pass through another. The
infants in this study were five months old, an age at which Piaget would say that such
knowledge is quite beyond them.

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APA Style References

Baillargeon, R. (1987). Object permanence in 3½-and 4½-month-old infants.

Developmental psychology, 23(5), 655.

Baillargeon, R., Spelke, E. S. & Wasserman, S. (1985). Object Permanence in Five-

Month-Old Infants. Cognition, 20, 191-208.

Bower, T. G. R., & Wishart, J. G. (1972). The effects of motor skill on object
permanence. Cognition, 1, 165–172.

Mehler, J., & Dupoux, E. (1994). What Infants Know: The New Cognitive Science of
Early Development. Blackwell Publishers.

Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.

Piaget, J. (1963). The Psychology of Intelligence. Totowa, New Jersey: Littlefield Adams.

How to reference this article:

McLeod, S. A. (2018, June 06). Object permanence. Simply Psychology.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/Object-Permanence.html

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