Infant Development Assignment

Do infants aged six months or younger know that an object, which has been hidden from view, still continues to exist?

Jean Piaget is one of the most influential developmental psychologists of the twentieth century, and he published highly debated theories of infant development in 1950s. In his publication, The Origins of Intelligence in Children (1952), Piaget divided development into four stages: sensorimotor, pre-operations, concrete operations, and formal operations. The first one – the sensorimotor period lasts from birth to approximately 2 years of age (Piaget, 1952). Piaget believed that an infant has no innate knowledge about the concept of object permanence “the object is a mere image that re-enters the void as soon as it vanishes,

Four-month-old infants looked at a broken one longer as a novel object and this suggests that infants perceived the visible parts and connected them behind the occluder to one object. This result indicates that infants are able to perceive the unity of an object even under partial occlusion. Kellman & Spelke (1983) claim that infants can represent the existence of hidden objects. Spelke et al (1992) carried out the experiment - Rolling Ball Study. During this experiment infants watched a ball that rolled slowly on the surface with the vertical obstacle blocking the way. 2.5 months old and four-month-old infants were tested and again they looked at the impossible outcome – when rolling ball appeared at a familiar position behind the barrier than at an outcome, in which the ball appeared at a novel position, was stopped by a barrier. Spelke et al (1990) carried out another experiment with infants in the fourth month. The infants were presented with a ball falling behind the screen and through the gap on a lower surface. The experiment used balls smaller (consistent) and larger (inconsistent) than the gap. The findings were clear that infants looked longer at the event with the large ball. This preference suggests that infants infer that a hidden object maintains its constant size and shape. Spelke et al (1992) claimed that infants understood the principle of solidity and could represent and reason about hidden objects. The results agreed with the studies by Baillargeon et al (1985) and even extended the findings to younger infants. These results show that 2.5-month-old infants are able to understand continuity and