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Psychology vocabulary · Developmental Psychology

Object permanence

Meaning in psychology, with examples

nounCommon term

In psychology, object permanence means: A baby's understanding that objects and people continue to exist even when they can no longer be seen, heard or touched.

In Turkish: nesne sürekliliği, nesne kalıcılığı

How it is used

A key idea in Jean Piaget's sensorimotor stage. Piaget placed its development in the second half of the first year and beyond; later studies using looking-time methods suggest that younger infants may understand more than he thought.

Example sentences

  1. Peekaboo is fun for babies partly because they are still developing object permanence.

  2. Before object permanence develops, an infant stops searching once a toy is hidden under a cloth.

Common collocations

  • develop object permanence
  • sensorimotor stage
  • A-not-B error
  • developmental milestoneA skill that most children reach within a typical age range, such as smiling, sitting, walking or saying first words, used to track development.
  • schemaA mental framework built from past experience that organises knowledge about something and guides how new information is noticed, interpreted and remembered.
  • theory of mindThe ability to understand that other people have their own thoughts, beliefs, desires and intentions, which may differ from yours, and to use this to predict what they will do.
  • attachmentThe deep emotional bond between a child and a caregiver, and the pattern of relating to others that grows from it and can continue into adulthood.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Developmental Psychology

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