Object Permanence Essay

Object permanence is a theory that was pioneered by a Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. It is simply an infant's ability to recognize that objects continue to exist when hidden. What interested me it is possible that young infants do have the ability to perceive that objects continue to exist when hidden which made want to find out more. Jean Piaget was well known for his studies in early childhood development. His main area of focus was cognitive development. He had developed many concepts and theories in this area of study. The one that interested me the most was object permanence. This is the idea that infants recognize objects. Piaget believed that it often became prevalent no younger 8 months of age (Myers, D. G., & DeWall, C. N. 2014). Throughout my childhood I’ve

I had come across the work of Renèe Baillargeon. She is a psychologist at the University of Illinois who specializes in child development in infants and toddlers. I was fascinated to discover that she has her own published work in developmental psychology and cognitive development. She also had many studies on object permanence. Sure enough, I found out that there were in fact recent studies that suggest that object permanence exists in infants as young as 3.5 to 4.5 months old (Baillargeon, R., & DeVos, J. 1991). In one study, there were a series of four experiments. Subjects were infants approximately 2 to 4 months of age. The apparatus was a wooden box covered with blue cloth. The infants were tested to see if they could perceive that, a tall and short carrot and a car with a mouse still existed when hidden behind the box. The conclusions were that infants under the age of 8 months have an innate ability to understand that hidden objects occupy a certain space, maintain consistent paths, dimensions and predictable interactions with some guidance (Baillargeon, R., & DeVos, J. 1991). Therefore this strongly disproves Piaget’s