Object Permanence

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Object permanence: the dictionary describes this as “a child’s ability to know that objects continue to exist even though they can no longer be seen or heard… it plays an important role in the theory of cognitive development.” The idea of object permanence has been shown in different cartoons, such as Family Guy. The one year old baby of the family, Stewie, is eating a meal when his father happens to come by and play a game of peekaboo with him. Stewie freaks out when his father hides his face behind his hands and immediately starts looking around for him. Stewie jumps when his father suddenly reappears and becomes frustrated when his father disappears again, right in the middle of his sentence. This is a great example of object permanence. As stated before, object permanence is a skill learned when we are infants and toddlers. There are six stages a child has to go through in order to fully develop this essential skill: the reflex scheme, secondary circular reactions, coordination of the secondary reactions, tertiary circular reactions, and different mental combinations. During the reflex scheme stage, the baby’s visual tracking begins, even though their vision still isn’t great. This scheme is absolutely vital to the baby’s growth and development; the visual stimulation the child is exposed to helps the infant learn how to detect movements. The idea that toys and people may vanish hasn’t started forming yet at this stage; the baby has no idea that there are things outside their current world that exist. A baby during the secondary circular motion stage will reach for a partially hidden toy; this is considered one of the main highpoints of this stage because it shows that the baby is becoming more and more familiar with that ... ... middle of paper ... ...ve that understanding of the concept of object permanence; in studying infants between one and four months of age, Bower and Wishart discovered that a baby will continue reaching for a toy for about ninety seconds after lights in the room had been shut off; the baby in question had a chance to see that toy and start reaching for it before the lights were turned off. Works Cited Carlos, JP. "Object Permanence: The 6 Stages in Infant Growth and Development." HubPages. N.p., 11 Novem 2012. Web. 2 Mar 2014. . MacFarlane, Seth, prod. 03 - First 2 years - Object Permanence.mp4. Perf. Jen Byers. Family Guy, 2011. Web. 2 Mar 2014. . McLeod, Saul. "Sensorimotor Stage." Simply Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Mar 2014. .

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