What can we learn about how infants think from their performance on ‘hidden object’ tasks?

There are different explanations as to how children develop and there will always be conflicting views when it comes to identifying the behaviour of infants, as their behaviour is limited. This makes the research limited; the methods used generally measure verbal responses or complex behaviours. As a child enters the world the first simple behaviours are either learnt or biologically developed. First sign behaviours are looking and sucking rates but these simple behaviours can provide psychologists with a basis to observe and explore how a child naturally develops. The other behaviours or reactions that are measured on babies are also movement of hands and facial expressions.
The techniques used for researching babies is limited due to limited behaviours and reactions this is why the key research method in studying early infants is mainly observation. Observation research can occur in two ways. The infant can be observed under structured circumstances or in a naturalistic way. Research on infants can often be a complicated matter. This is due to many factors. There are opposing theoretical perspectives about how development takes place in infancy and this paper will be looking toward Piaget’s view on development in infancy.
There are opposing views and evidence regarding cognitive development in infancy and one strong view was provided by Jean Piaget. Piaget entertained the constructivist view on development and emphasised that infants are in control of there own understanding and they do this by attempting to understand the environment by exploring it, and they do this through constructing schema’s through 3 process’ which are namely assimilation, accommodation and equilibration.
An infants understanding (particularly with object’s) they apparently, adapt an existing schema when they come across conflicting and new information. In this case the infant eventually adapts to the concept that the object doesn’t in fact disappear, but is still present and the child shows that it has learnt this information when the infant finds the object in the A B error task. Piaget portrays through his view that an infant’s way of thinking is considerably different to that of the way an adult would actively perceive and understand the world.
Piaget’s hidden object task, showing the A not B error made him come to the conclusion that infants have a limited understanding of properties of objects until the end of the first year. Piaget’s theory changed the way cognitive development has been understood and explored. Piaget’s work has made the greatest impact on the study of cognitive development. A significant feature of Piaget’s theory is the focus on processes of cognitive development.
According to Piaget, the child is born with an innate curiosity to interact with and understand her/ his world. It is through interaction with others (particularly with ones peers), that the child actively constructs his/ her development. Piaget emphasises that interaction with the environment is crucial and that infants actively learn by physically exploring the environment.
Research is complicated as it can be difficult to infer accurately what a child is definitely thinking or feeling as they do not yet have comprehend language or are not yet able to communicate in a complex manner. However complicated research on infancy may be it still provides us with evidence of innate abilities that infants may have as well as investigating the relationship between language and thought, it also helps us to understand the early stages of developmental changes. The most up to date method in researching evidence about infant’s understanding and acknowledgement of objects is the use of modern tenuous such as habituation.
Piaget’s view of intelligence is seen through Piaget’s demonstration of the limited object permanence of babies between specific stages through infancy. Infancy is generally defined as being the ‘pre- language’ stage, which occurs approximately around the ages of 0 to around 18/24 months. However Piaget’s stages of cognitive development are more concretely defined as specific stages. The ‘infancy’ stage in which the age range is from approximately 0- 2 years is namely the ‘sensori- motor’ stage. Within Piaget’s definition there are six sub stages of the sensori- motor stage. Piaget reinforced active exploration of the environment and used his hidden object task as evidence for this.
Piaget’s A not B error, thus the ‘hidden object task’ is implicitly performed in order to provide us with research and information to understand the early stages of developmental changes and to identify abilities a child has (or has not yet learnt) in this case. When a child frequently interacts with an object they eventually develop object permanence.
According to Piaget, children’s understanding of object permanence occurs during the sensori motor stage, and he states that during some of the sub stages such as 4- 10 months (namely secondary circular reactions), a partially hidden object can be found whilst encountering his hidden object task. Piaget believes that infants develop understanding of objects in various stages.
The ‘exercising reflexes’ stage (birth to a month) for example, provides us with the information that reflexes are practiced until they function smoothly. Infants, apparently, have no intentionality and no understanding of what an object is at this stage.
In the primary circular reactions stage (from 1- 4 months) an infant will look where an object disappears for a few moments, but won’t search for it is it doesn’t appear again. The infant as a result loses interest. Piaget infers that the child stops thinking about it as soon as it disappears. This is the way he thinks infants think during this stage of life and learning. Piaget’s stages provide us with his view on why infants behave the way they do. He provides active explanations for the behaviour of children (particularly evident through the retrieval of the hidden object.) He has a clear analysis to why a child reacts the way it does through the various different stages. In the third stage, the secondary circular reactions (4- 10 months stage.) There is a clear analysis to why the infant tries to retrieve the object. The infant suggests that it realises that a partially hidden object is attached to the visible part of the object and this obviously shows that the child now has an understanding about what the object is as well as working out different mental process (such as retrieving an object) in the infant’s head.
In the fourth stage, thus the co-ordination of secondary circular reactions (10- 12 months) stage, it is clear that the infant is now capable of projecting the image of the object in to it’s mind and memory, because the child is capable of retrieving the object fully, now. This stage emphasises symbolic behaviour and memory as the memory as the infant can now anticipate events and consequences of actions as well as conjuring up a goal and also acting upon it. In this case, persisting to look for the hidden object that has been hidden. This alone teaches us how quickly a child can develop; In terms of development of mental processes and especially development of intelligence. Piaget’s theory also provides us with the view that infants can be far more complex than imagined.
There have been further experiments created in order to discredit Piaget’s AB error. In one particular case the results did not confirm Piaget’s hypothesis that the infant is primarily concerned with their own actions. Sixteen infant participants were tested in the same AB 2 choice error style but were also evenly tested with a 5 choice hiding task. The results revealed that perhaps the “AB search error occurs primarily as an artefact of the two choice search task.” This experiment contradicts Piaget’s view that infants were, when making the error, not able to store or encode and retrieve information concerning the spatial locations of objects in their environment.
The AB error is regarded in reference to an infant’s inability in spatial localisation. Although Piaget’s work has its limitations it also provides us with the problems that need resolving in order for this to be explored better. This can include understanding more specifically the child’s knowledge objects at different levels of age or perhaps exploring the reasoning behind what factors are needed in order to provide the infant with the information needed in not making that AB error.
There are other more notable studies that have highlighted that blind infants who reach for rattles and bells may be able to associate the object with sound but must already have developed an object concept. There have been problems highlighted with this formulation, as most studies have; However it does provide an alternative explanation.
There are many limitations to Piaget’s view on how children develop this may be due to the dramatically different views there are on how children develop. Piaget’s stages are very specific compared to some, for example Bruner (1966) is concerned with knowledge in development compared to Piaget who is concerned with cognitive growth. Bruner’s ‘enactive mode’, which is only part of three stages during a lifespan, runs in conjunction with Piaget’s sensori- motor stage. Bruner sees, (like Piaget) object permanence as being a vital stage in the infant’s development. Piaget’s AB error is an important experiment in to research in child development as it has been tested worldwide and has had much significance within educational psychology. As with all great theories Piaget’s hidden object task, has been criticized and over analysed and further researched and some problems with the experiment have come to light. One particular problem with the methodology of Piaget’s experiment has been shown through another experiment since then. This experiment contradicts Piaget’s belief that once an infant cannot see the object it does not think of it, - hence, ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ Bower and Wishart’s (1972) experiment showed that when children were shown an object and the light was turned off the infants searched for it for up to one and a half minutes which showed that although the object wasn’t visible the children were still actively having mental processes whist thinking of the object. The infants were 5 months old, which contradicts Piaget’s findings, and they actively looked and searched in the direction of the object, which provides evidence that they knew that the object continued to exist. This experiment raised doubts about Piaget’s conclusions. Another conflicting argument was from Baillargeon (1987) whose research suggested that infants as young as three and a half months old can obtain object permanence at this early stage. Further theoretical arguments such as Spelke, Mandler also claimed that there is earlier knowledge of object properties.
This paper looks explicitly at different perspectives and views about cognitive development in infancy and focuses particularly on Piaget’s view that infants have little understanding of properties of object until the end of the first year. This paper specifically specifies on infant’s understanding of objects. Although there is different research that indicates Piaget’s findings as contradictory as evidence has shown object permanence as beginning in earlier stages as he claims, Piaget’s theory still beholds the up most significance as his research implies that we can lean very much from infant’s performance on ‘hidden object’ tasks. This is because the A B error experiment provides us with the important findings that the hidden object task shows how quickly children develop and shows us numerous ways in which they learn.
The A B error experiment suggests that infants begin representational thought during the first year of infancy in other aspects of development, which can include social relationships with peers, as well as the development of interaction and language development. This means that Piaget’s view can implicate the start of social development as the A B error experiment counteracts and explores relationships as well as recognition in terms of recognising objects in this case as well as recognising familiar people.
Research in child development will always be a hard thing to achieve as there will always be implications of problems as none of the research can be completely falsifiable as there is a consensus that we cannot remember the reasoning behind our actions from adult perspectives, whilst trying to analyse our behaviour and understanding of the world as infants. There will always be criticisms within the methodology undertaken when researching infants as there will be an aspect of unreliability and limitations concerning the validity of the research undertaken. However, Piaget has opened up the understanding of child psychology and has provided us with further research and incredible findings in to why and how children develop.

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