Young infants' expectations about hidden objects.

Ted Ruffman; Lance Slade; Jessica Redman

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2005.01.007

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Young infants' expectations about hidden objects.

Ted Ruffman·Lance Slade·Jessica Redman

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Abstract

Infants aged 3-5 months (mean of approximately 4 months) were given a novel anticipatory looking task to test object permanence understanding. They were trained to expect an experimenter to retrieve an object from behind a transparent screen upon hearing a cue ("Doors up, here comes the hand"). The experimenter then hid the object behind one of two opaque screens and after either 2 or 8s gave the "doors up" cue. Infants looked to the correct location after the two-second delay, but not after the eight-second delay. This indicates a brief memory that the object is present behind the occluder. The study provides converging evidence that infants grasp object permanence by a young age. The novel anticipatory looking paradigm helps rule out counter-explanations applied to violation-of-expectation tasks.

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Attention Cognition Cues Female Humans Infant Infant Behavior Male Videotape Recording Visual Perception Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

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Ted Ruffman, Lance Slade, Jessica Redman. 2005. Young infants' expectations about hidden objects.. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.01.007

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