Object Permanence Research Articles

Early working memory is a significant predictor of verbal and processing skills at 6–7 years in children born extremely preterm

ObjectiveThe study was designed to investigate whether attainment of object permanence, a measure of early working memory used at 18–22 months corrected age, was associated with executive function at 6–7 years in a cohort of children born extremely preterm. Study designChildren enrolled in the Neuroimaging and Neurodevelopmental Outcome (NEURO) study, a secondary study to the Surfactant Positive Airway Pressure and Pulse Oximetry Trial (SUPPORT) of the NICHD NRN, were eligible for this longitudinal study. Testing completed at 18 to 22 months corrected age was compared to testing at school age with a specific focus on measures of executive function. ResultsChildren who had achieved object permanence mastery at a corrected age of 18–22 months had higher mean scores on the WISC-IV tests of verbal comprehension and processing speed at age 6–7 years. Regression models indicated that object permanence scores were significant predictors of both verbal comprehension and processing speeds scores, after controlling for other factors. When analyzed by subgroup for sex, these results were significant for girls but not for boys. ConclusionsThis study found that an early mastery of object permanence was associated with higher scores in areas of verbal comprehension and processing speed in girls. These results have implications for potentially identifying young children born preterm that are at greater risk for difficulties with cognitive and working memory skills at school age.

Early child development in children who are HIV-exposed uninfected compared to children who are HIV-unexposed: observational sub-study of a cluster-randomized trial in rural Zimbabwe.

IntroductionExposure to maternal HIV may affect early child development (ECD), although previous studies have reported heterogeneous findings. We evaluated ECD among children who were HIV‐exposed uninfected (CHEU) and children who were HIV‐unexposed (CHU) recruited to the SHINE trial in rural Zimbabwe.MethodsSHINE was a community‐based cluster‐randomized trial of improved infant feeding and/or improved water, sanitation and hygiene. Pregnant women were enrolled between 2012 and 2015. We assessed ECD in a sub‐study at 24 months of age, between 2016 and 2017, using the Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool (MDAT; assessing motor, cognitive, language and social development); MacArthur‐Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) (assessing vocabulary and grammar); A‐not‐B test (assessing object permanence); and a self‐control task. Mothers and infants were tested longitudinally for HIV. We used generalized estimating equations to compare ECD scores between CHEU and CHU, accounting for the cluster‐randomized design. Primary results were adjusted for trial‐related factors that could affect measurement reliability of ECD: study nurse, age of child, calendar month of birth, sex and randomized arm.ResultsA total of 205 CHEU and 1175 CHU were evaluated. Mean total MDAT score was 90.6 (SD 8.7) in CHEU compared to 92.4 (9.1) in CHU (adjusted mean difference −1.3, 95% CI: −2.3, −0.3), driven mostly by differences in gross motor (−0.5, 95% CI: −0.9, −0.2) and language scores (−0.6, 95% CI: −1.1, −0.1). There was evidence that fine motor scores were lower in CHEU (adjusted mean difference −0.4, 95% CI: −0.8, 0.0) but no evidence of a difference in social scores (0.1, 95% CI: −0.2, 0.4). Mean MacArthur‐Bates CDI vocabulary score was 57.9 (SD 19.2) in CHEU compared to 61.3 (18.8) in CHU (adjusted mean difference −2.9 words, 95% CI: −5.7, −0.1). Object permanence and self‐control scores were similar between groups.ConclusionsCHEU in rural Zimbabwe had total child development and vocabulary scores that were approximately 0.15 standard deviations lower than CHU at two years of age. More detailed and specific studies are now needed to unravel the reasons for developmental delay in CHEU and the likelihood that these delays persist in the longer term.

Pupillometric VoE paradigm reveals that 18- but not 10-month-olds spontaneously represent occluded objects (but not empty sets).

Object permanence has been investigated with a variety of paradigms and measures, yielding heterogeneous findings. The current study employed a novel Violation-of-Expectation paradigm measuring pupil dilation as indicator of cognitive effort and surprise. Across repeated trials, infants watched videos of animated toys either stopping in an open door frame or moving across the open door frame off screen. The door then closed and opened up again to reveal either the toy, or an empty space. In Experiment 1, 18-month-olds’s pupils dilated in response to the unexpected empty outcome more than to the expected empty outcome, establishing the paradigm as a suitable measure of violation of object expectation. Using the same paradigm, Experiment 2 revealed an absence of this object expectation effect for 10-month-olds. Results are discussed with regard to paradigmatic aspects and developmental differences. It is suggested that young infants do not automatically represent occluded objects upon perceiving occlusion events, and that occlusion events may initially require relevance in terms of individual activity or social interaction.

5 things you need to know about…: object permanence

When do children start to understand something still exists even though they can't see or hear it – and what activities will they enjoy doing at this time? By Ruth Thomson

Enhancing "self-control": The paradoxical effect of delay of reinforcement.

Delay of reinforcement is generally thought to be inversely correlated with speed of acquisition. However, in the case of simultaneous discrimination learning, in which choice results in immediate reinforcement, delay of reinforcement can improve acquisition. For example, in the ephemeral reward task, animals are given a choice between two alternatives, A and B. Choice of A provides reinforcement, and the trial is over. Choice of B provides reinforcement and access to alternative A (thus, two reinforcements). Many animals appear unable to learn to choose B consistently, but inserting a 20-s delay between choice and outcome has been shown to facilitate optimal choice. Similarly, pigeons given a choice between a signal for one pellet and a signal for two pellets (each occurring without a delay) have difficulty learning to choose the two-pellet alternative, unless the reinforcement is delayed. In a version of object permanence, food is placed in one of two containers, and the pigeon must choose the container with the food. Pigeons have difficulty reliably choosing the correct container unless a brief delay is inserted between baiting and choice. Finally, pigeons have been shown to prefer a suboptimal alternative (a 20% chance of getting a cue for reinforcement) over an optimal alternative (a 100% chance of getting a cue for 50% reinforcement). However, if pigeons are forced to wait 20 s following their choice to receive the cues, no preference for the suboptimal alternative is found. Thus, impulsive choice may be reduced by delaying the consequence of that choice.

Investigation of object-based attention in pigeons (Columba livia) and hill mynas (Gracula religiosa) using a spatial cueing task.

In previous research, pigeons and hill mynas that performed differently on an object permanence task were presumed to attend to objects in different ways (Plowright, Reid, & Kilian, 1998). In the current study, we conducted 4 experiments to investigate if the attention of hill mynas and pigeons is object-based and if there are species differences in their visual-attentional processes. In Experiment 1, pigeons were tested in a spatial cueing task requiring them to respond sequentially to a cue and a target that appeared at 1 of the 4 ends of two rectangles. Both when the response to a fixation stimulus was required before target presentation (Experiment 1A) and when such a response was not required (Experiment 1B), there were no significant differences in reaction times to the targets appearing at cued and noncued rectangles; these results provided no evidence of object-based attention in pigeons. In Experiment 2, for 2 of the 3 hill mynas tested in a procedure similar to that for the pigeons in Experiment 1B, reaction times were shorter to the target appearing on the cued rectangle than to the target appearing on noncued rectangle, suggesting the operation of object-based attention, as in humans. In Experiment 3, we tested naive pigeons by means of the procedure used for hill mynas in Experiment 2. However, again pigeons showed no evidence of object-based attention, suggesting a species difference in attentional processes. The generality of the current results and evolution of the possible species differences were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

On the implications of object permanence: Microhistorical insights from Piaget's new theory.

The authors' arguments reflect the dominant traditions of American Psychology. In doing so, however, they miss relevant insights omitted during the original importation (translation and popularization) of the foreign sources that informed the theories they built upon. Of particular relevance here are Piaget's last studies. These are presented to unpack the meaning of "object permanence" as a kind of representation.

Effects of improved complementary feeding and improved water, sanitation and hygiene on early child development among HIV-exposed children: substudy of a cluster randomised trial in rural Zimbabwe

IntroductionHIV-exposed uninfected children may be at risk of poor neurodevelopment. We aimed to test the impact of improved infant and young child feeding (IYCF) and improved water, sanitation and hygiene...

Investigating the social environment of the A‐not‐B search task

Controversy exists concerning the origins of object permanence, with different measures suggesting different conclusions. Looking measures have been interpreted as evidence for early understanding (Baillargeon, 1987, Developmental Psychology, 23:655), while Piaget (The construction of reality in the child, 1954) interpreted perseverative reaching behaviour on his AB search task to be indicative of limited understanding. However, looking measures are often reported to be an unreliable index of infant expectation (Haith, 1998, Infant Behaviour and Development, 21:167) and reaching behaviour has been explained by many alternative processes (e.g. Smith et al., 1999, Psychological Review, 106:235; Topál et al., 2008, Science, 321:1831). We aimed to investigate whether social looking (Dunn & Bremner, 2017, Developmental Science, 20:e12452; Walden et al., 2007, Developmental Science, 10:654) can be used as a valid measure of infant expectation of object location during the Piagetian AB search task. Furthermore, we aimed to test the social accounts of perseverative reaching by investigating how the direction of experimenter gaze would affect infant search and social behaviour. Infant search and social behaviour was compared on B trials across three different conditions, namely experimenter gaze to midline, location A and location B. Search performance significantly improved when the experimenter looked to location B. Infant social looking indicated that infants expect the object to be found in the location in which they search and are actively seeking information about object location from the experimenter. We conclude that social looking is a valid index of infant expectation that has provided support for the importance of the social environment on the AB search task. This casts doubt on the potential for this task to provide information related to the development of object permanence in infancy.

El papel de la experiencia visual previa en el desarrollo de habilidades de permanencia de objetos en delfines nariz de botella (Tursiops truncatus)

La permanencia de los objetos, la capacidad de representar objetos ocultos, no se ha evaluado ampliamente en los cetáceos y la evidencia disponible es contradictoria. Aunque se cree que los delfines nariz de botella (Tursiops truncatus) están dotados de las capacidades cognitivas necesarias para aprobar pruebas complejas de permanencia de objetos, han fallado en una serie de tareas que involucran desplazamientos invisibles, lo que plantea la cuestión de si logran la permanencia de los objetos maestros. La falta de comprensión de la contención o la falta de experiencia en el seguimiento de objetos ocultos tanto de la vista como de la ecolocación pueden explicar estos resultados inesperados. El objetivo del presente estudio fue probar estas dos hipótesis en una serie de tareas de desplazamiento visibles e invisibles con delfines nariz de botella. Nuestros resultados sugieren que los delfines pueden tener éxito en tareas complejas de permanencia de objetos, pero solo si tienen experiencia visual previa con los movimientos de objetos dentro de otros objetos. Por lo tanto, estos resultados apuntan a un papel importante de la experiencia visual en el desarrollo de habilidades de permanencia de objetos.

Object permanence in Giraffa camelopardalis: First steps in giraffes' physical cognition.

Although behavior, biology, and ecology of giraffes have been widely studied, little is known about their cognition. Giraffes' feeding ecology and their fission-fusion social dynamics are comparable with those of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), suggesting that they might have complex cognitive abilities. To assess this, we tested 6 captive giraffes on their object permanence, short-term memory, and ability to use acoustic cues to locate food. First, we tested whether giraffes understand that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight. Giraffes saw one of two opaque containers containing food, then containers were closed, and 2 s later giraffes could choose one. Second, we measured giraffes' memory repeating the procedure but with a delay of 30 s, 60 s, or 2 min between closing the containers and subjects' choice. Finally, we investigated whether giraffes could locate food inside one of two identical opaque containers, when the only cue provided was the sound made by food when shaking the baited container, or the lack of sound when shaking the empty container. Our results show that giraffes form mental representations of completely hidden objects, but may not store them for longer than 30 s. Moreover, they rely on stimulus enhancement rather than acoustic cues to locate food, when no visual cues are provided. Finally, we argue that giraffes and other ungulates might be a suitable model to investigate the evolution of complex cognitive abilities from a comparative perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Bright Discontinuities: Peter Manson and Contemporary Scottish Poetry

Critical responses to Peter Manson’s work often refer to him as a Scottish or Glasgow-based poet. In a review of Manson’s 2017 pamphlet Factitious Airs, Alice Tarbuck proposes that one of the key things differentiating Manson from his avant-garde contemporaries is his attentiveness to place and particularly “to Scottish speech rhythms and cultural ideas.” Nonetheless, most critical writing on Manson has sought to read his work primarily in terms of international movements in experimental poetics. This article therefore considers Manson’s relationship with and place within contemporary Scottish poetry, asking what connections can be made between his writing and that of his geographical peers. Manson has, notably, written very sympathetically about Tom Leonard’s work. Another potential point of contact would be Object Permanence, which, like Poor. Old. Tired. Horse thirty years before, brought writers from Scotland into contact with new currents in international poetry (and vice versa). In Manson’s work as a translator of Mallarme there is also a connection with the modern(ist) Scottish tradition of poetic translation exemplified by Edwin Morgan. Situating Manson’s work in the landscape of contemporary Scottish poetry, this article asks to what extent this offers a potentially fruitful context within which to read his work – going on to explore what the implications of such a reading might be.

Independent and combined effects of improved water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and improved complementary feeding on early neurodevelopment among children born to HIV-negative mothers in rural Zimbabwe: Substudy of a cluster-randomized trial.

BackgroundGlobally, nearly 250 million children (43% of all children under 5 years of age) are at risk of compromised neurodevelopment due to poverty, stunting, and lack of stimulation. We tested the independent and combined effects of improved water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and improved infant and young child feeding (IYCF) on early child development (ECD) among children enrolled in the Sanitation Hygiene Infant Nutrition Efficacy (SHINE) trial in rural Zimbabwe.Methods and findingsSHINE was a cluster-randomized community-based 2×2 factorial trial. A total of 5,280 pregnant women were enrolled from 211 clusters (defined as the catchment area of 1–4 village health workers [VHWs] employed by the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and Child Care). Clusters were randomly allocated to standard of care, IYCF (20 g of small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplement per day from age 6 to 18 months plus complementary feeding counseling), WASH (ventilated improved pit latrine, handwashing stations, chlorine, liquid soap, and play yard), and WASH + IYCF. Primary outcomes were child length-for-age Z-score and hemoglobin concentration at 18 months of age. Children who completed the 18-month visit and turned 2 years (102–112 weeks) between March 1, 2016, and April 30, 2017, were eligible for the ECD substudy. We prespecified that primary inferences would be drawn from findings of children born to HIV-negative mothers; these results are presented in this paper. A total of 1,655 HIV-unexposed children (64% of those eligible) were recruited into the ECD substudy from 206 clusters and evaluated for ECD at 2 years of age using the Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool (MDAT) to assess gross motor, fine motor, language, and social skills; the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) to assess vocabulary and grammar; the A-not-B test to assess object permanence; and a self-control task. Outcomes were analyzed in the intention-to-treat population. For all ECD outcomes, there was not a statistical interaction between the IYCF and WASH interventions, so we estimated the effects of the interventions by comparing the 2 IYCF groups with the 2 non-IYCF groups and the 2 WASH groups with the 2 non-WASH groups. The mean (95% CI) total MDAT score was modestly higher in the IYCF groups compared to the non-IYCF groups in unadjusted analysis: 1.35 (0.24, 2.46; p = 0.017); this difference did not persist in adjusted analysis: 0.79 (−0.22, 1.68; p = 0.057). There was no evidence of impact of the IYCF intervention on the CDI, A-not-B, or self-control tests. Among children in the WASH groups compared to those in the non-WASH groups, mean scores were not different for the MDAT, A-not-B, or self-control tests; mean CDI score was not different in unadjusted analysis (0.99 [95% CI −1.18, 3.17]) but was higher in children in the WASH groups in adjusted analysis (1.81 [0.01, 3.61]). The main limitation of the study was the specific time window for substudy recruitment, meaning not all children from the main trial were enrolled.ConclusionsWe found little evidence that the IYCF and WASH interventions implemented in SHINE caused clinically important improvements in child development at 2 years of age. Interventions that directly target neurodevelopment (e.g., early stimulation) or that more comprehensively address the multifactorial nature of neurodevelopment may be required to support healthy development of vulnerable children.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT01824940

Neuroimaging Findings on Amodal Completion: A Review.

Amodal completion is the phenomenon of perceiving completed objects even though physically they are partially occluded. In this review, we provide an extensive overview of the results obtained from a variety of neuroimaging studies on the neural correlates of amodal completion. We discuss whether low-level and high-level cortical areas are implicated in amodal completion; provide an overview of how amodal completion unfolds over time while dissociating feedforward, recurrent, and feedback processes; and discuss how amodal completion is represented at the neuronal level. The involvement of low-level visual areas such as V1 and V2 is not yet clear, while several high-level structures such as the lateral occipital complex and fusiform face area seem invariant to occlusion of objects and faces, respectively, and several motor areas seem to code for object permanence. The variety of results on the timing of amodal completion hints to a mixture of feedforward, recurrent, and feedback processes. We discuss whether the invisible parts of the occluded object are represented as if they were visible, contrary to a high-level representation. While plenty of questions on amodal completion remain, this review presents an overview of the neuroimaging findings reported to date, summarizes several insights from computational models, and connects research of other perceptual completion processes such as modal completion. In all, it is suggested that amodal completion is the solution to deal with various types of incomplete retinal information, and highly depends on stimulus complexity and saliency, and therefore also give rise to a variety of observed neural patterns.

Using automated controlled rearing to explore the origins of object permanence.

What are the origins of object permanence? Despite widespread interest in this question, methodological barriers have prevented detailed analysis of how experience shapes the development of object permanence in newborn organisms. Here, we introduce an automated controlled-rearing method for studying the emergence of object permanence in strictly controlled virtual environments. We used newborn chicks as an animal model and recorded their behavior continuously (24/7) from the onset of vision. Across four experiments, we found that object permanence can develop rapidly, within the first few days of life. This ability developed even when chicks were reared in impoverished visual environments containing no object occlusion events. Object permanence failed to develop, however, when chicks were reared in environments containing temporally non-smooth objects (objects moving on discontinuous spatiotemporal paths). These results suggest that experience with temporally smooth objects facilitates the development of object permanence, confirming a key prediction of temporal learning models in computational neuroscience.

Farm Animal Cognition-Linking Behavior, Welfare and Ethics.

Farm animal welfare is a major concern for society and food production. To more accurately evaluate animal farming in general and to avoid exposing farm animals to poor welfare situations, it is necessary to understand not only their behavioral but also their cognitive needs and capacities. Thus, general knowledge of how farm animals perceive and interact with their environment is of major importance for a range of stakeholders, from citizens to politicians to cognitive ethologists to philosophers. This review aims to outline the current state of farm animal cognition research and focuses on ungulate livestock species, such as cattle, horses, pigs and small ruminants, and reflects upon a defined set of cognitive capacities (physical cognition: categorization, numerical ability, object permanence, reasoning, tool use; social cognition: individual discrimination and recognition, communication with humans, social learning, attribution of attention, prosociality, fairness). We identify a lack of information on certain aspects of physico-cognitive capacities in most farm animal species, such as numerosity discrimination and object permanence. This leads to further questions on how livestock comprehend their physical environment and understand causal relationships. Increasing our knowledge in this area will facilitate efforts to adjust husbandry systems and enrichment items to meet the needs and preferences of farm animals. Research in the socio-cognitive domain indicates that ungulate livestock possess sophisticated mental capacities, such as the discrimination between, and recognition of, conspecifics as well as human handlers using multiple modalities. Livestock also react to very subtle behavioral cues of conspecifics and humans. These socio-cognitive capacities can impact human-animal interactions during management practices and introduce ethical considerations on how to treat livestock in general. We emphasize the importance of gaining a better understanding of how livestock species interact with their physical and social environments, as this information can improve housing and management conditions and can be used to evaluate the use and treatment of animals during production.

Object permanence in the pigeon (Columba livia): Insertion of a delay prior to choice facilitates visible- and invisible-displacement accuracy.

Object permanence, often viewed as a measure of human cognitive development, has also been used to assess animals' cognitive abilities. Tests of object permanence have distinguished between visible displacement, in which an object may be placed into one of two (or more) containers to be retrieved, and invisible displacement, in which after the object is placed into the container, the container is moved before retrieval is attempted. We tested pigeons' accuracy on both visible and invisible displacement using a rotational beam with a container at either end. In Experiment 1, the pigeons showed some evidence of object permanence on an initial visible displacement test, but they did not maintain accurate choice. With training, their accuracy improved but only to about 70% correct. When tested on a 90° invisible displacement (rotation), accuracy transferred but once again dropped with further training. In Experiment 2, a 5-s delay was inserted between container baiting and choice. Once again, the pigeons showed some evidence of object permanence on an initial visible displacement test, although on the first test session, choice accuracy was not much better than in Experiment 1. With training, choice accuracy improved greatly. Furthermore, pigeons showed good transfer when they were tested on the 90° invisible displacement. Finally, and importantly, they also transferred well to a 180° invisible displacement, a displacement on which dogs failed. The results of these experiments suggest that under the right conditions, pigeons can show a moderate degree of object permanence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

A comparison of object permanence progression during sitting development in infants with typical development and infants with motor delay

A comparison of object permanence progression during sitting development in infants with typical development and infants with motor delay

Feature Integration in Visual Working Memory

This article reviews studies on feature integration in visual working memory, which is critical for various cognitive activities using visual information. Studies involving change detection and multiple object tracking tasks reported that feature-integrated object representations are successfully maintained, and that the parietal cortex plays a major role. Subsequent studies that involved explicit tasks on feature combination, such as feature swap detection and multiple object permanence tracking, revealed the role of the prefrontal cortex, but it remains equivocal whether visual working memory holds feature-integrated object representations. In addition, recent studies using an implicit-association test measure, the redundant feature reviewing task, combining object reviewing and redundancy gain paradigms, provided evidence on feature-integrated object representations in visual working memory. Electroencephalography data analysis showed prefrontal activities reflecting the integration of the color and shape of an object, which is consistent with the result of studies measuring explicit tasks. Altogether, these findings are consistent with a recently proposed "feature confirmation" model, claiming that object features can be integrated in bottom-up visual processing and the limitation in feature binding occurs in the top-down mechanism which confirms the presence of features and their combination.

Where\u2019s the cookie? The ability of monkeys to track object transpositions

Object permanence is the ability to represent mentally an object and follow its position even when it has disappeared from view. According to Piaget’s 6-stage scale of the sensorimotor period of development, it seems that object permanence appears in Stage 4 and fully develops in Stage 6. In this study, we investigated the ability of some species of monkeys (i.e. pig-tailed macaque, lion-tailed macaque, Celebes crested macaque, barbary macaque, De Brazza’s monkey, L’Hoest’s monkey, Allen’s swamp monkey, black crested mangabeys, collared mangabeys, Geoffroy’s spider monkey) to track the displacement of an object, which consisted of a reward hidden under one of two cups. Our findings showed that the examined subjects possess Stage 6 of object permanence. We then compared our results with data on apes and dogs participating in Rooijakkers et al. (Anim Cogn 12:789–796, 2009) experiment, where the same method was applied. The monkeys examined by us performed significantly better than the dogs but worse than the apes. In our experiment, the monkeys performed above chance level in all variants, but it should be noted that we observed significant differences in the number of correct choices according to the level of a variant’s complexity.