Category: Child Psychology

Object permanence In Piaget’s theory is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when we can’t actually see them.

Object permanence, or object constancy, in developmental psychology is understanding that things continue to exist, even if you cannot seem them.

Infants younger than around 4-7 months in age do not yet understand object permanence.

Understanding object permanence is a key part of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.

What is object permanence?

Before they can develop an understanding of object permanence, young children must have a mental representation of an object.

Without understanding object permanence, though, young children must wonder where the world goes when they close their eyes.

Perhaps young infants, brand new in the world, experience their environment as a kind of nonsensical dream in which even the simplest properties of objects surprise them.

Or, perhaps they do have some intuitive understanding that objects continue to exist even when they can’t be directly experienced?

This is the question psychologists have been trying to answer while researching what infants in their first year of life understand about ‘object permanence’.

Jean Piaget’s theory of object permanence

From his research, Piaget concluded that children couldn’t properly grasp the concept of object permanence until they were at least 12 months of age.

In a typical experiment Piaget would show a toy to an infant, then hide it or take it away.

Piaget would then watch to see if the child searched for the toy.

From experiments like these, Piaget developed a six-stage theory of object permanence:

1. 0–1 months: Reflexes – First babies use their reflexes to understand and explore the world. Their awareness of objects is poor, as is their eyesight.
2. 1–4 months: Primary circular reactions – Babies start to notice some objects and movements are enjoyable. They discover their feet, arms and hands.
3. 4–8 months: Secondary circular reactions – These are when babies do something to create a reaction, such as reaching for an object that is partially hidden. However, babies do not yet reach for hidden objects, perhaps suggesting a lack of understanding of object permanence.
4. 8–12 months: Coordination of secondary circular reactions – One of the most important stages for cognitive development. Now the infant is goal-directed. This is when the earliest understanding of object permanence starts. Children can pull objects out from hidden locations.
5. 12–18 months: Tertiary circular reaction – The child starts using trial-and-error to learn and solve new problems. The child can retrieve an object when it is hidden several times, as long as they can see it first.
6. 18–24 months: Invention of new means through mental combination – A full understanding of object permanence occurs at this age. A child can understand when objects are hidden in containers. In Piaget’s theory, this is because children have developed mental representations. They can imagine the object without being able to see it.

Criticism of Piaget’s theory

Piaget has often been criticised for underestimating children’s abilities, in particular of object permanence.

Piaget’s ideas were challenged by a series of studies on object permanence carried out by Professor Renee Baillargeon from the University of Illinois and colleagues (e.g. Baillargeon & DeVos, 1986).

These studies used children’s apparent surprise at ‘impossible’ events to try and work out whether they understood object permanence.

Examples of modern object permanence research

In one study infants as young as 6.5 months watched a toy car travelling down a ramp.

Half way through its journey, though, it went behind a screen out of the baby’s view before exiting the other side, once more visible.

In one condition the infants saw a block placed behind the screen in the way of the toy car.

And yet when the car was released, experimental trickery was used so that the block didn’t stop the car’s progress.

Miraculously it still appeared from the other side of the screen.

This ‘impossible’ condition was compared with another condition where the block was placed near, but not in the way of, the car’s progress – the ‘possible’ condition.

Baillargeon found that the infants looked reliably longer at the seemingly impossible scenario.

This suggested they understood that the block continued to exist despite the fact they couldn’t actually see it.

They also must have understood that the car could not pass through the block.

This seems like reasonable evidence that infants can understand object permanence.

Object permanence from 3.5 months-of-age

In further studies Professor Baillargeon tested all sorts of variations on this theme.

Toy rabbits, toy mice and carrots were all used, with some defying the laws of nature in the ‘impossible’ conditions and others studiously following them in the ‘possible’ conditions.

Each time, though, infants looked longer at the apparently impossible events, perhaps wondering if they were dreaming.

These studies have now shown that infants as young as 3.5 months seem to have a basic grasp of object permanence.

While others have argued for alternative explanations and interpretations, when all these studies are taken together the idea that children understand object permanence is arguably the simplest explanation.

Infants are intuitive physicists

Using these results Baillargeon and others have argued that young infants are not necessarily trapped in a world of shapes which have little meaning for them.

Instead they seem to be intuitive physicists who can carry out rudimentary reasoning about physical concepts like gravity, inertia and object permanence.

So, perhaps infants don’t perceive the world as a completely nonsensical dream.

Sure, they have many new things to learn and many things surprise them, but they do seem to understand some fundamentals about how the world works from very early on.

→ This article is part of a series on 10 crucial developmental psychology studies:

1. When infant memory develops
2. The mirror test for babies
3. How children learn new concepts
4. The importance of attachment styles
5. When infants learn to imitate others
6. Theory of mind reveals the social world
7. Understanding object permanence
8. How infants learn their first word
9. The six types of play
10. Piaget’s stages of development theory

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Types of play that children exhibit, from solitary to cooperative, can signal their state of social development.

Types of play are central to children’s development.

In fact, the pioneering developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky thought that, in the preschool years, play is the leading source of development.

Through play children learn and practice many basic social skills.

They develop a sense of self, learn to interact with other children, how to make friends, how to lie and how to role-play.

The classic study of how play develops in children was carried out by Mildred Parten in the late 1920s at the Institute of Child Development in Minnesota (Parten, 1933).

She closely observed children between the ages of 2 and 5 years and categorised the types of play.

Parten collected data by systematically sampling the children’s behaviour.

She observed them for pre-arranged 1 minute periods which were varied systematically.

Types of play

The thing to notice is that the first four types of play don’t involve much interaction with others, while the last two do.

Unlike Jean Piaget who saw types of play in primarily cognitive developmental terms, Parten emphasised the idea that learning to play is learning how to relate to others.

While children shift between the types of play, what Parten noticed was that as they grew up, children participated less in the first four types of play and more in the last two – those which involved greater interaction.

1. Unoccupied types of play

In the first type of play, the infant does not really appear to be playing at all.

The child is relatively stationary and appears to be performing random movements with no apparent purpose.

This is because everything is new to the child, so even the smallest or most mundane object is full of wonder.

There is nothing for parents to do at this stage of developing, as babies know what to do instinctively: they just explore their world at the own pace.

2. Solitary (independent) play

The second type of play is when the child mostly plays on their own.

Generally, the child is completely engrossed in playing and does not seem to notice other children.

Blocks, stuffed animals, costumes, toy-figures often hold endless fascination for children in this stage.

This type of play is most often seen in children between 2 and 3 years-old.

Children that are more extraverted may not spend long on this stage, while more introverted children may continue with solitary play for longer.

3. Onlooker play

For the third type of play, the child takes an interest in other children’s play but does not join in.

They may ask questions or just talk to other children, but the main activity is simply to watch.

Onlooker play is common around three-years-old.

The child is learning how to play from the other children.

4. Parallel types of play

The fourth type of play involves children playing alongside each other, but not quite together.

The child mimics other children’s play but doesn’t actively engage with them.

For example, they may use the same toy or copy what the other child is doing with the toy.

While the children may not appear to be paying much attention to each other, this is an illusion.

They are actually watching closely as they learn.

This is the final type of play before children truly learn to connect with others.

5. Associative play

By around age five, children are learning to relate to each other more.

In the associated type of play, they are more clearly involved with with what the other children or child is doing.

In fact, they are now more interested in each other than the toys they are using.

For example, two children in this stage might each build their tower out of blocks, but be talking to each other at the same time.

This is the first category that involves strong social interaction between the children while they play.

6. Cooperative types of play

All the stages come together in this type of play.

Now children — typically of around four and five-years-old — start to cooperate with others.

They will now build their towers together, try to complete a puzzle together and compete in a board game.

At this stage come organisation enters children’s play, for example the playing has some goal and children often adopt roles and act as a group.

Criticism of these 6 types of play

Critics have pointed out that children do not necessarily go through this sequence of types of play.

Some toddlers may be able to play cooperatively and playing on their own is not necessarily a sign of immaturity in an older child.

The type of play that children indulge in is also influenced by the situation they are in.

For example, familiarity with the other children will make the more likely to interact.

More types of play

While these six steps were the main types of play that Parten described, there have since been many different typologies.

Here are some more common types of play:

• Fantasy/dramatic play: dressing-up or role-playing are both examples of dramatic or fantasy play.
• Symbolic play: Jokes, drawing, colouring and singing are all examples of symbolic play.
• Physical play: for developing physical skills.
• Constructive play: teaches children to build, manipulate and cooperate.
• Competitive play: children learn rules, being part of a team and how to cope with winning and losing.

→ This article is part of a series on 10 crucial developmental psychology studies:

1. When infant memory develops
2. The mirror test for babies
3. How children learn new concepts
4. The importance of attachment styles
5. When infants learn to imitate others
6. Theory of mind reveals the social world
7. Understanding object permanence
8. How infants learn their first word
9. The six types of play
10. Piaget’s stages of development theory

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Children brought up like this tend to be happier as adults.

People who were out in nature more as children have better mental health as adults, research finds.

Playing in the backyard, hiking and just being in nature as a child are all linked to lower depression and anxiety later on.

Growing up experiencing the natural environment helps people understand its benefit.

Those not exposed to nature as children are less likely to appreciate its benefits as an adult, the study also found.

Being in nature has been linked to both better mental and physical health.

Unfortunately, 73 percent of Europeans live in urban areas with little access to green spaces.

As populations worldwide continue to urbanise, the number of people who can easily get out into nature is likely to decrease.

The study included 3,585 people of all ages in four European cities.

All were asked how often they were out in nature as children, whether for purposeful activities like hiking or just playing in the backyard.

Those who had not enjoyed nature as children did not appear to understand its benefits, said Ms Myriam Preuss, the study’s first author:

“In general, participants with lower childhood exposure to nature gave a lower importance to natural environments.”

The main result showed that being in nature more as a child was linked to better mental health as an adult.

Dr Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, study co-author, said:

“Many children in Europe lead an indoors lifestyle, so it would be desirable to make natural outdoor environments available, attractive and safe for them to play in.

We make a call on policymakers to improve availability of natural spaces for children and green school yards,”

The study was published in the International Journal of Environment Research and Public Health (Preuss et al., 2019).

The reason we forget so many early childhood experiences.

Most people cannot remember much before they were seven-years-old.

The phenomenon — known as ‘childhood amnesia’ — starts to kick in at age 7, causing memories before this time to blur and fade into nothingness.

However, many people do have very faint memories going back as far as age 3.

Professor Patricia Bauer, the study’s first author, said:

“Our study is the first empirical demonstration of the onset of childhood amnesia.

We actually recorded the memories of children, and then we followed them into the future to track when they forgot these memories.”

The study involved asking children who were just 3-years-old about recent events they had experienced, including going to the zoo and a birthday party.

The children were followed up many years later to see if they remembered the event.

At the time of recall they were between the ages of five and nine.

The results showed that between 5- and 7-years old, the children could remember 72% of the events.

However, by the time they had reached 8- or 9-years-old they could only remember 35% of the events.

Professor Bauer said:

“One surprising finding was that, although the five-and-six year-old children remembered a higher percentage of the events, their narratives of these events were less complete.

The older children remembered fewer events, but the ones they remembered had more detail.”

The process of recall at an early age, plus improved language skills may help to embed certain memories.

The reason children forget memories more easily than adults is because they lack strong neural processes that lock them in place.

Professor Bauer likens memories to orzo (tiny pieces of pasta) as they pass through the holes of a colander.

Children have larger holes in their mental colanders, so they catch fewer memories:

“Memories are like orzo, little bits and pieces of neural encoding.

As the water rushes out, so do many of the grains of orzo.

Adults, however, use a fine net instead of a colander for a screen.”

The study was published in the journal Memory (Bauer & Larkina, 2013).

To this day the ‘mirror test’ or ‘rouge test’ remains the best experiment yet developed for examining the emergence of self-concept in infants.

Most people look out for number one, themselves, which makes it strange to think that there was ever a time when we had no concept of ‘me’.

A simple study dating from the early 70s suggests that before the age of around two years old we can’t recognise ourselves in the mirror.

Because of this study, and the many variations that have followed, some claim that it isn’t until our second birthday that our self-concept emerges.

Rouge test

In 1972 Beulah Amsterdam from the University of North Carolina published a study that has kicked-off decades of research on self-recognition (Amsterdam, 1972).

The study’s procedure was simple.

Infants between the ages of 6 and 24 months were placed in front of a mirror after a spot of rouge had been surreptitiously put on their noses.

Then their mothers pointed to the reflection in the mirror and asked the child: “Who’s that?”.

Researchers than watched infants’ behaviour.

After testing 88 infants Amsterdam could only obtain reliable data on 16 of them – infants will be infants and many didn’t want to play.

From these 16 infants Amsterdam found three categories of response:

1. 6-12 months: it’s another baby! The child behaves as though the infant in the mirror is someone else – someone they’d like to be friendly with. They display approach behaviours such as smiling and making noises.
2. 13-24 months: withdrawal. The infants no longer seem particularly happy at catching their own image in the mirror. Some look a little wary while others will smile occasionally and make some noises. One interpretation of this behaviour is that the infants are acting self-consciously here (perhaps demonstrating self-concept), but it could also be a reaction to another child.
3. 20-24 months onwards: it’s me! From around this age infants start to clearly recognise themselves by pointing to the spot of rouge on their own noses. This strongly suggest they have realised the image is themselves and the spot of rouge is on their own nose.

Although Amsterdam’s results were from a small sample size, they have subsequently been repeated with many more participants.

Also, later studies with control conditions have found infants in this age-range don’t touch their nose if it isn’t marked with rouge.

This showed that touching the nose isn’t somehow a natural reaction for infants to seeing own reflection.

Self-concept or just self-recognition?

Of course this study simplifies a mass of psychological complexity.

Psychologists have raised all sorts of questions about what the mirror test or rouge test reveals.

It could be, for example, that infants just don’t understand faces particularly well until they are around two years old.

Perhaps, then, they develop a self-concept at a much earlier stage.

Alternatively it could be that at around two years old infants develop a solid physical or visual self-concept, but still have little mental self-concept.

In this case all the test is showing is that we know what we look like; perhaps we don’t develop our self-concept until much later in life.

These are just two common explanations, I’m sure you can think of more alternatives.

This multitude of possibilities illustrates one of the major hurdles in child psychology: results are especially ambiguous because only limited tests can be carried out on children.

Still, despite these alternatives, the mirror test has proved remarkably hardy over the years and is still used today while other tests have fallen by the wayside.

The social child

One of the reasons for its resilience is that it seems likely that self-concept might well emerge at this age from all the other things we know about children.

It is from around 2 to 4 years of age that children start to display a rapid increase in their social behaviour.

Being able to distinguish yourself from other people is fundamental to successful social relationships rather than simple interactions.

It seems unlikely that infants would be able to build relationships with others without some limited concept of themselves.

The mirror test has also been used on other animals to test their self-concept, indeed the test was originally carried out on chimpanzees by Professor Gordon Gallup a few years before Amsterdam.

All the great apes ‘pass’ the test, along with dolphins, whales and elephants. In one recent study an 8ft mirror was placed in the elephant enclosure at New York’s Bronx Zoo and the elephants had marks painted on their heads.

Researchers who kept watch on the elephants’ reactions saw them touch the paint marks on their own heads.

It’s no coincidence that elephants, like the other animals that pass the test, have complex social systems.

Basic self-recognition is key to being able to relate to others; with this knowledge infants take their first faltering steps into the social world.

→ This article is part of a series on 10 crucial developmental psychology studies:

1. When infant memory develops
2. How self-concept emerges in infants
3. How children learn new concepts
4. The importance of attachment styles
5. When infants learn to imitate others
6. Theory of mind reveals the social world
7. Understanding object permanence
8. How infants learn their first word
9. The six types of play
10. Piaget’s stages of development theory