object permanence

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Object permanence is the understanding that an object continues to exist when it is no longer visible. RB2 presents it through Piaget’s account of infants developing knowledge in embodied interaction, particularly searching behind a cover. The proposed subentry retains that developmental illustration without equating the disappearance of an object from perception with its actual destruction or making one search task an exhaustive test.

Explanation

The defining witness links object permanence with basic cause-and-effect understanding in the sensorimotor period. Searching supplies an action-based example of knowing rather than a purely verbal definition learned by an otherwise passive observer. The native reference preserves Piaget’s textual provenance without adding new experiments or their results.

The surrounding discussion describes schemas developing through manipulation and coordination, then supporting later symbolic thought. Object permanence is one achievement within that larger account, not a synonym for all memory, intelligence or abstract representation. The entry introduces no age threshold or inference that failure on one occasion proves a child lacks the capacity entirely.

AB’s restored-sight narrative concerns a different problem: visual recognition must be learned despite familiarity through other senses. That comparison prevents identification of every perceptual difficulty with missing object permanence. The proposal keeps persistence, recognition and successful search distinguishable while recording Piaget’s embodied developmental explanation as the locally attributed account.

Scope and attribution

Retain the bounded Piagetian illustration without adding unprovided timing or diagnostic claims.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Piagetian embodied search concerns continued existence beyond visibility.

Occurrence locators: 85.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Object permanence is distinguished from restored-sight recognition and general schema elaboration.