A longitudinal study of the development of the object concept

Object concept development was studied longitudinally in a group of 24 infants from 12 weeks until achievement of Stage 6. Infants were tested between 12 and 28 weeks on four visual tracking tasks: a simple, unoccluded tracking task and three others, each involving a different spatial relationship in mid‐track between the object and an occluder (a screen, tunnel, or platform). Competence on manual search tasks was monitored from the age at which reaching first appeared. Understanding of the same three spatial relationships between object and occluder (behind, in and on) was tested. Early exposure to the visual tracking tasks turned out to have a substantial accelerative effect on object concept development. Both the visual and manual data collected lend more support to a three‐advance identity model of object concept development than to the traditional six‐stage Piagetian model.