Object Permanence: Why Peek-a-Boo is Magic!

Does this sound familiar? Your baby sees your cell phone and wants it. You're not that interested in a saliva-covered screen (trust me...in great enough quantities, baby saliva can fry a phone) so slip it behind your back, maybe making some comment like "All Gone" to her. She seems to believe you and goes on to soak some other object with her spit. Small catastrophe averted.

But wait! The next time you try this sneaky maneuver, she looks at you, and then reaches behind your back. You have failed to fool her.

The difference is explained by the fascinating development of what is called object permanence. Originally described by psychologist Jean Piaget, object permanence refers to the basic ability to realize that things continue to exist even when you can't see them.

Here's how it works. During the first six months or so, infants don't seem to have object permanence, so putting your cell phone behind your back really does seem to make it disappear. At this age, this is why games like peek-a-boo are so much fun. Think about it, you cover your face with your hands - disappearing - and then move them with a shout of "Peek-a-boo!" all of sudden revealing your hidden face. The infant thinks something like "Wow! Mom's magic! How did you DO that cool trick?"

Then, around 6 months of age, infants go through some very big changes that are ushered in both by motor developments and brain changes and the appearance of object permanence is one of these. Now your baby will look for your phone when you hide it and they will laugh and smile at peek-a-boo because now its sort of like your inside joke with them - they get what you're really doing.

Funny Calvin & Hobbes Cartoon Strip

You can test this first stage of object permanence easily by hiding something your infant wants (like under a blanket) and watching to see if she looks for it. Just keep in mind that if she doesn't, it could simply mean she doesn't want it that bad rather than that she hasn't reached this development. For my son, Ian, if I really want to show off this skill (which I do regularly for students in the child development classes I teach), I break out something he finds really exciting - like keys or a remote.

Still, at this point in the game there are some limitations in what infants are capable of and they'll make what are called "A not B errors", so there's a second stage of object permanence that happens later. Between the time the first and second stages develop, if something disappears, the infant will look where she thinks the object should be, but if its not there...then it really must have disappeared!

To test this stage with your baby, try this:
Lay two burp cloths side-by-side on the ground in front of your baby. Get her interest in an object (like a rattle, remote, phone, etc.) and let her watch you then hide it underneath the burp cloth on the left so that its hidden. Here's where you have to be fast and sneaky...without her seeing the object, slip it out from under the cloth on the left and slide it under the other one and watch see what she does. Does she look for it where she saw you hide it? If so, we've got the first stage of object permanence. But when she sees its not there, does she give up or look someplace else, like under the cloth on the right? If she continues to look then she has the second stage of object permanence as well.

With the development of object permanence, your baby has entered a whole new world. Hide-and-seek games will now be fun, but other things, like separation anxiety, will also increase for awhile as she tries to figure out what's going on.

When you get to this point, congratulate her on her new skill and realize that you'll now have to find better hiding spots for your phone. But make sure you remember where you hid it!