Infants' development of object permanence: a refined methodology and new evidence of Piaget's hypothesized ordinality

To investigate Piaget's theory of object concept development, a series of 6 tasks was administered in a combined longitudinal/cross-sectional design incorporating a number of methodological controls. The tasks spanned the entire sensorimotor period and included single versus sequential displacements combined with visible or invisible hidings. 36 infants from 5 to 32 months of age at initial testing were drawn equally from day-care and home settings. All infants received the 6 tasks during each of 3 testing sessions over a 6-month period. Clear evidence was obtained for task ordinality as proposed by Piaget, with ordinality coefficients ranging from .71 to .82 for the 3 testing sessions. Performance changes across the 3 sessions were also ordinal in 80% of the cases. Expected age, task, and session effects and accompanying interactions were also obtained.