Invisible Displacement Research Articles

Developments in infants' search for invisibly displaced objects

A study of 16- and 24-month-old infants' performance on an invisible displacements task examined age differences in infants' search patterns in relation to developing comprehensive search skills. The study focused on problems that involved displacements among three locations within either a three- or a five-location space. Three major classes of comprehensive search skills were found at both ages: (1) persistence—continuing to search until the object is found; (2) nonredundancy—not searching a location more than once; and (3) systematic ordering—utilizing either the spatial arrangement of the locations or their temporal ordering in the displacement sequence to order successive searches among them. The principal developmental change was in the ordering of infants' searches, which corresponded increasingly to the temporal ordering of locations in the displacement sequence.

Understanding the movements of objects: Early developments in spatial cognition

What do infants understand about movements of an object from one place to another? This is a central problem in the study of early cognitive development, because a full understanding of the movement of objects presupposes representational and inferential abilities that are often considered to distinguish adult‐like intelligence from the sensorimotor intelligence of infants. The two experiments in this paper examine developments in children's understanding of visible and invisible displacements between 9 months and 30 months of age. The first focuses on 9‐ and 12‐month‐olds' understanding of single displacements. The results suggest that 9‐month‐olds can understand visible but not invisible displacements, while 12‐month‐olds understand both visible and invisible displacements. The second experiment further tests children's early understanding of visible displacements by looking at performance on spatial transposition problems. The results again support the conclusion that infants can infer invisible movements by about 1 year of age, although large improvements in performance continue to occur through the later part of the infancy period. Across both studies, consistent evidence that infants already have at least a limited understanding of the movements of objects, and that the age groups show similar patterns of performance despite large improvements in their levels of performance, points to substantial continuity in early cognitive development.

発達初期の対象の探索課題における直接知覚と先行経験との関連

To examine the relevancy between direct perception and prior experience in the development of object cognition, three experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, six tasks which were combined with two delay time conditions (0 and 3 sec.) and three conditions of different spatial cues were administered to eight 8-month old babies, and the differences of the occurrence rate of AB error were compared. In Experiment 2, eight 8-month old babies were tested to see whether they had committed AB error in the case of their having passive search experience alone. In Experiment 3, twenty-two 13 to 21-month old babies were tested to investigate whether they had committed AB error and the residual responses similar to stage IV in the stage V task of doubled invisible displacement and the influence of spatial cue on those responses were examined. The main results showed that both direct perception and prior experience contributed to babies' cognition of objects and they were related to each other not only coordinatedly but also conflictingly, according to delayed time and the characteristics of spatial cue introduced.

Cognitive bases of lexical development: object permanence and relational words.

ABSTRACTThe hypothesis that there is a close relationship between object permanence and early language acquisition has not been supported by most previous research. McCune-Nicolich (1981), however, performed a detailed theoretical analysis and, as a result, found a close relationship between stage 6 object permanence development and the use of relational words. Unlike previous studies which used mostly quantitative measures of language, McCune-Nicolich related object permanence to the semantic content of the child's early words. She concluded that relational words enter the child's lexicon ‘as a group’ during stage 6, due in part to the development of the cognitive abilities of that stage. The current study attempts to make this claim more specific and consequently more accurate. Relational words requiring the conceptualization of the visible displacement of objects should emerge during stage 5, those involving invisible displacements during stage 6, and those referring to more complex spatial displacements only later during the pre-operational period. Data from a longitudinal study of six 1-year-olds corroborate this more specific account.

Semantic and cognitive development in 15- to 21-month-old children.

ABSTRACTRecent studies suggest a specific relationship between the acquisition of the word ‘gone’ and the development of the object concept. A longitudinal study investigated whether there is a similar relationship between the acquisition of words that encode success and failure, such as no, uh-oh and there, and the development of means–ends skills. A cross-sectional study investigated both these relationships. The results suggest that children acquire the word gone after they solve simple invisible displacement tasks but before they solve serial invisible displacement tasks. They also show that children acquire success/failure words after they use insight to solve the problem of the string but before they use insight to solve more difficult means–ends problems. These sequences cannot be explained in terms of age, general cognitive development or general linguistic development. It is argued that gone encodes a concept related to the concepts that underlie success on invisible displacement tasks, and that success/failure words encode concepts related to the concepts that underlie the development of insight. Children seem to acquire words that encode concepts they have just developed or are in the process of developing. These results suggest that there are strong and specific links between the acquisition of particular types of meanings and particular cognitive achievements. Several alternative explanations for these early links between semantic and conceptual development are proposed.

The Effects of Differential Criteria on the Assessment of Cognitive-Linguistic Relationships

SMOLAK, LINDA, and LEVINE, MICHAEL P. The Effects of Differential Criteria on the Assessment of Cognitive-Linguistic Relationships. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1984, 55, 973-980. Many investigations of Piaget's model of cognitive-linguistic relationships have used methods that are inconsistent with Piagetian theory. This study examined 3 common methodological problems: (1) the definition and scoring of stage 6 object permanence, (2) the definitions of representational language and symbolic play, and (3) the use of correlations for data analysis. 40 children, 1-3 years old, were tested on 5 invisible displacement tasks, symbolic play level, and representational language. When Piaget's operational definitions of nonlinguistic and linguistic representation were used, presentation of the data in contingency tables supported his contention that nonlinguistic representation precedes linguistic representation. This relationship was unaffected by liberal versus conservative scoring of object-permanence task. When operational definitions developed by other researchers were used, the relationships were underestimated. Collectively, the results suggest that use of Piaget's operational definitions and restricted use of correlational techniques are essential for a meaningful evaluation of his theory. This study provides some guidelines for defining and analysing linguistic and nonlinguistic representation in future investigations of Piaget's model.

The acquisition of gone and the development of the object concept.

ABSTRACTThe relationship between the acquisition of gone and the development of the object concept is investigated. Children acquire gone at the same time that they solve serial invisible displacement tasks, in a transitional period in the development of the object concept. According to a ‘neo-piagetian’ account of the object concept, children move from using specific rules to predict the reappearance of objects, to using a general theory of object movements during this period. The children's uses of gone suggest that gone encodes the fact that the child does not perceive an existing object. This concept is an essential component of the new theory of objects developed in this period. Children seem to acquire gone when they are in the midst of developing the concept that gone encodes, which may explain why they acquire the word in this period. In this case, conceptual development does not precede semantic development; rather, conceptual and semantic development appear to proceed simultaneously.

The Development of Representation in Search: A Social-Cognitive Analysis

BERTENTHAL, BENNETT I., and FISCHER, KURT W. The Development of Representation in Search: A Social-Cognitive Analysis. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1983, 54, 846-857. Problems in replicating in Piaget's invisible-displacements task point the way toward a social reconceptualization of the search situation: With the emergence of representation at age 2, children can understand that the experimenter is an independent agent who hides the object surreptitiously. Contrary to Piaget, however, 2-year-olds can only base their search on some single, surreptitious hiding act of the experimenter, not on the entire path of invisible displacements of the object. In 4 experiments with 12to 24-month-olds, children did not recreate the path of the object; but by 24 months they did seem to treat the experimenter as an independent hider. When 24-month-olds saw the experimenter hide the object by moving his hand from end to end behind or under a row of screens, they consistently began their search in an end screen. The search of infants under 18 months was not affected in the same way by watching the experimenter. Infants over 18 but less than 24 months seemed to show the advanced search pattern only when they had extensive experience with the search situation. The older infants' end-screen search in combination with other search strategies independent of representation can produce an illusion of systematic search recreating the object's path.

Developments in infants' search for displaced objects

In an exploratory study of infants' search for displaced objects, 13-month-olds and 21-month-olds were tested on three kinds of displacement problems—visible displacements, invisible displacements, and transpositions—as well as singlehiding problems. Two aspects of performance on the displacement problems were distinguished: (1) searching within the locations involved in the displacement rather than at a control location, and (2) selecting between the displacement locations. Both the younger and the older infants were able to select the correct location on visible displacement problems and to search within the displacement locations on invisible problems. Neither age group was able to solve the transposition problems, but the older infants did at least search within the relevant locations on those problems. Age differences appeared to be due primarily to improved skill at identifying relevant locations rather than to improvements in selecting among those locations. Other factors contributing to the age differences in performance were a decrease in response biases and an increase in skills for coping with multiple possibilities.

The development of spatial understanding in infancy

This paper examines the development of spatial understanding between 8 and 24 months. In particular, it examines whether young infants code changes in the position of an object or themselves in geographic or egocentric terms. The infants sat in a baby chair which was attached to a circular table in such a way that either the infant could be rotated around the edge of the table or the table-top itself could be rotated. Rotation of infant or table could be performed independently or simultaneously. Infants were shown an object which was then hidden under one of either two or three identical cups sitting on the table. Before the infant was allowed to search for the toy, either the table, the infant, or both were rotated, a procedure which resulted in an invisible displacement of the object in terms of geographical and/or egocentric spatial position. Rotations of 60, 90, 120, and 180° were used. Three groups of infants were tested, one cross-sectional (12–24 months), one longitudinal (12–24 months), and one consisting of a group of infants already known to be accelerated in object concept development (8–20 months). The cross-sectional results indicated that egocentric responding continues well into the second half of the second year of life. Even with fortnightly exposure to the tasks, egocentric responding was still evident in some longitudinal babies as late as 19 months. The results of the accelerated group suggest that acceleration through the sequence of object concept development facilitates development of spatial understanding in a wider sense, that is, in the sense of understanding the interrelation of positions in space. The implications of these results for competing theories of the source of object concept errors are discussed.

The effects of task and practice on search for invisibly displaced objects

The ability to successfully search for an invisibly displaced object is frequently assumed to relate to the emergence of mental representation at around 2 years of age. However, little is known about what is actually being measured in the typical “stage 6” object permanence search task. Two studies examined the effects of task factors and practice on invisible displacements and systematic search tasks to show that simple variations in ways of hiding an object change the child's ability to find it. Experiment 1 compared two common methods of presenting invisible displacements items to 36 children, approximately 2 years of age. One task was significantly easier than the other, despite the fact that they contained identical items that varied only in their order of presentation. Experiment 2 tested the effects of short-term practice on 18- and 24-month-olds' success on invisible displacements trials and on two systematic search tasks. Results indicate that too little practice inhibited performance in 18-month-olds, but that practice beyond an optimum level did not further affect their scores. In contrast, 24-month-olds continued to benefit from increased practice until they reached the maximum possible score. The findings are interpreted to mean that invisible displacements tasks may require only sensorimotor search strategies rather than representation. The findings also have implications for (a) research that attempts to relate object permanence to other variables and (b) programs that use object permanence as an assessment or screening measure.

The search behavior of 12 to 14 month-old infants on a five-choice invisible displacement hiding task

Twelve- to 14-month-old infants were presented with a series of invisible displacement hiding trials at a first location (A) and, subsequently, at a second location (B). Infants had to choose among five salient alternative search locations on each trial. Contrary to Piaget's Stage V task predictions, infants did not make the “A, not B” search error. That is, infants seldom searched at A during B-hiding trials. Instead, beginning with the first hiding trial at B (and at A), search responses tended to cluster at or near the correct hiding location. The results are interpreted in terms of a memory hypothesis which suggests that infants are generally able to encode, store, and retrieve at least some information concerning the current spatial location of objects during invisible displacements.

Search on a five-choice invisible displacement hiding task: A reply to Cummings and Bjork

Search on a five-choice invisible displacement hiding task: A reply to Cummings and Bjork

The emergence of representation in search: Understanding the hider as an independent agent

Corrigan's results point the way toward a reconceptualization of how the development of representation affects search. The child does not cognitively recreate the invisible displacements of the object. Instead she seems to understand that the hider is an independent agent who can use simple hiding strategies that the child does not directly perceive. This representational skill for search, we propose, is one realization of a general representational capacity that emerges late in the second year. The general capacity is defined structurally as the ability to coordinate two sensorimotor systems into a single skill. Although there seem to be some discontinuities in the emergence of the representational capacity, its development is mostly gradual and continuous.

A two-man experience with the copper “T” intrauterine device

The contraceptive effectiveness and the incidence of side effects of the Copper T Model T Cu200 in 396 women was studied by a two-man team in a private clinic. There were six pregnancies, a rate of 2.7 per 100 woman years of use, which were associated with either expulsion or displacement of the IUCD. The expulsion-displacement was higher in the immediate postpartum insertions, and in the nulligravid group. The implications of these findings are discussed, and visible and invisible displacement of the IUCD are illustrated. Twenty IUCDs were removed for medical reasons primarily menorrhagia and/or metrorrhagia. There were 9 removals for non-medical reasons, mainly because of desired pregnancy. Menorrhagia and intermenstrual spotting were the most frequently reported side effects of the copper T. There was a drop in the incidence of reported side effects as the months of use increased with the exception of metrorrhagia in the gravid group. The significant advantages of the Cu T are its high acceptability in the nulligravid, the reduced bleeding, and the ease of insertion.

THE EFFECT OF NAMING AND OBJECT PERMANENCE ON TOY PREFERENCES

ROBERTS, GAIL C.; and BLACK, KATHRYN NORCROSS. The Effect of Naming and Object Permanence on Toy Preferences. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1972, 43, 858-868. 40 children, 18-22 months, were presented with 16 toys, 1 at a time, with half of the toys named for the child and half not named. Timed preference choices between named and unnamed pairs were then obtained. Stage of object permanence was also assessed. It was found that if children have achieved the stage of object permanence where they can follow an object through a sequence of invisible displacements they manipulate named toys more than unnamed toys. These results are interpreted as being consistent with formulations by both Luria and Piaget.

A methodological investigation of Piaget's theory of object concept development in the sensory-motor period

A sample of 84 infants, ages 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 months, were tested under one of two conditions in Piagetian-type tasks derived from a series proposed by Uzgiris and Hunt (1966). The Replication (R) Condition closely followed the administration outlined by Uzgiris and Hunt except that the testing conditions and number of trials for each task were standardized. The Extension (E) Condition contained a number of additional controls for possible confounding variables: task orders followed a Latin square design, objects were hidden under identical clothes, and the right-left order of trial presentation was counterbalanced. Each S received 8 of the 15 tasks studied presumed to span the limit of abilities evidenced by that age S. Infants' search behaviors were scored independently by two observers with 98% agreement. The pattern of results was consistently but generally not significantly more reliable in the E Condition than in the R Condition. Consistent age changes were evident, suggesting two overlapping developmental dimensions: the ability to deal with visible versus invisible displacements, and with nonsequential versus sequential displacements. The trend of the data suggested, contrary to previous evidence, that the infant can cope with single invisible displacements not involving movement before he can handle complex visible displacements that do involve movement. Evidence for ordinal development, examined by the Green test, a Guttman-type scaling measure, was minimal, and several tasks were not performed as expected from Piaget's theorizing and previous findings. The present method was concluded to be promising for use in future investigations.