Rethinking infant knowledge: Toward an adaptive process account of successes and failures in object permanence tasks.

TLDR

Infants detect hidden objects by 3.5 months yet cannot retrieve them until 8 months, a pattern that principle‑based theories explain by assuming early knowledge of object permanence but later deficits in means‑ends skills. The study proposes an adaptive process account in which knowledge is graded and embedded in specific behavioral processes. The authors trained 7‑month‑old infants on means‑ends behaviors and then tested their retrieval of visible versus occluded toys. Infants retrieved visible toys more often than occluded ones despite equal means‑ends demands, and simulation models that gradually learn to represent occluded objects reproduce this success–failure pattern without invoking separate principles and deficits.

Abstract

Infants seem sensitive to hidden objects in habituation tasks at 3.5 months but fail to retrieve hidden objects until 8 months. The authors first consider principle-based accounts of these successes and failures, in which early successes imply knowledge of principles and failures are attributed to ancillary deficits. One account is that infants younger than 8 months have the object permanence principle but lack means-ends abilities. To test this, 7-month-olds were trained on means-ends behaviors and were tested on retrieval of visible and occluded toys. Means-ends demands were the same, yet infants made more toy-guided retrievals in the visible case. The authors offer an adaptive process account in which knowledge is graded and embedded in specific behavioral processes. Simulation models that learn gradually to represent occluded objects show how this approach can account for success and failure in object permanence tasks without assuming principles and ancillary deficits.