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The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
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The nativist approach to infant cognitive development proposes that infants are born with inherent knowledge structures that allow them to interpret the world almost immediately. This perspective contrasts with earlier developmental theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget, which emphasized a more gradual acquisition of cognitive abilities through interaction with the environment. One key concept in this approach is object permanence — the understanding that objects continue to...
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Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development01:14

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The preoperational stage, the second of Jean Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, spans approximately ages 2 to 7 and is characterized by the emergence of symbolic thinking. During this stage, children use language, images, and symbols to represent objects and concepts, enabling them to engage in imaginative and pretend play. This symbolic thinking supports children's ability to perform make-believe actions, such as imagining a broom as a horse or their hand as a phone, blending...
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The formal operational stage, as described in Piaget's cognitive development theory, begins around age 11 and extends into adulthood. It marks the emergence of advanced cognitive abilities that differentiate adolescent and adult thinking from those of younger children. This stage is characterized by abstract reasoning, hypothetical-deductive reasoning, and a more complex understanding of self and others.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 14, 2025

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
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Eight-Month-Old Infants Infer Unfulfilled Goals, Despite Ambiguous Physical Evidence.

J Kiley Hamlin1, George E Newman1, Karen Wynn1

  • 1Yale University.

Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies
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Eight-month-old infants can infer an actor's unfulfilled goal, even when physical cues are misleading. This suggests infants actively analyze goal-directed actions in others.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Infant Psychology
  • Perception

Background:

  • Understanding goal-directed actions is crucial for social cognition.
  • Previous research indicates infants can infer goals from actions, but ambiguity's role is less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if 8-month-old infants can infer an unfulfilled goal when presented with conflicting physical information.
  • To determine if infants prioritize goal information over trajectory details.

Main Methods:

  • Infants observed a human hand attempting to place a ring on a cone, with actions inconsistent with the goal.
  • Test events presented either trajectory consistency or goal consistency.
  • Habituation and control conditions (inanimate object) were used.

Main Results:

  • Eight-month-olds looked longer at the event consistent with the trajectory but inconsistent with the goal.
  • This preference was absent in infants not habituated to the failed attempt or in the control group.

Conclusions:

  • Infants actively and selectively analyze unfulfilled goal-directed behavior.
  • Early infancy involves sophisticated interpretation of actions, even with ambiguous physical cues.