# Talk:Object permanence

The stages are well referenced at Theory of cognitive development#Sensorimotor_period.  Before merely copying these over, I wondered whether these stages belonged in this article at all.  Any thoughts? Finereach (talk) 18:24, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

On further thought, I will just copy them over at some point. Finereach (talk) 18:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
On third thoughts, the references are not as applicable as I had hoped, I will see if I can dig out something more relevant. Finereach (talk) 18:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
I am looking at my child development textbook and also this page.  I am confused, because it looks like these stages are not part of object permanance.  The textbook has the stages that you have listed under object permance as stages under the final stage of Piaget's last stage of sensorimotor development.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.67.255.49 (talk) 00:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC) 

This section is very good, but is there not criticisms of this theory as some believe object permanence occurs before a child is able to speak? Perhaps this should be stated in the article. 
Also, while parts of Piaget's theory are contested, it would still be a good idea to get more information on his theory and studies from his own articles. Lauradronen (talk) 18:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

With recent developments in quantum mechanics, isn't object permanence more of an assumption than an understanding? When the idea of object permanence first came up in psychology I'm sure we didn't have the technology to determine if something is there when it is not being observed. We've already proved that individual particles, atoms and molecules are not classified as such until the are observed. Soon they may very well prove that objects are not actually there when there is nothing to observe them, they only have a chance of being there when you do. Cyrus40540057 (talk) 02:39, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Object permanence/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Muboshgu (talk · contribs) 18:35, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm busy today and likely too busy tomorrow to perform this review, but I will have it done by Friday at the latest. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:48, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
I've started to review the article. I'll keep adding to my comments as I find things... – Muboshgu (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Review
An image would be nice. There should be freely available images that can illustrate some of these points.
Formatting issues...
Per WP:ORDINAL, numbers from zero through nine should be spelled out, rather than digitized. In the lead, "8 and 12 months" would be better expressed as "eight and twelve months".
Per MOS:HEAD, section titles should be in sentence case, not title case
For simplicity sake, "Object Permanence in More Than Humans" is not a good section title. Also, per MOS:HEADINGS, section titles shouldn't refer to the title of the article. I'm not sure if it can be avoided in this case, but for "Stages of Object Permanance", it should simply be titled "Stages"
In "Contradicting Evidence" and "Stages in Object Permanence", those should be numbered lists, formatted according to MOS:LIST.
Trouble with references:
Some references are duplicated (I see Baillargeon and DeVos, 1991 in #8 and #9).
You have some formatted as scientific citations, with others in the <ref></ref> tags.
Cite #4 is improperly formatted.
Some of the cited articles don't exist in the references, such as Lucas and Uzgiris, 1977. I haven't searched for them all yet, so there might be more, and I will check it before the review closes, pass or fail.
A "conclusion" section is against Wikipedia's S.O.P. I understand that this is a class project, and that psychology papers require conclusion sections, but on Wikipedia, we don't do that. Any information should be migrated to appropriate sections, or deleted if its duplicative.
The "See also" section is meant only for related links that aren't included in the text of an article. Theory of cognitive development is in both the text and "see also", so it should be removed from the latter.
The sentence "Infants that have not yet developed might appeared confused. [5]"...
Have not yet developed what? I know what, but the sentence needs a slight rewrite for grammar
The space should be removed between the period and the reference.
That "space between the reference" issue needs to be resolved at "magpies.[18] [19] [20] [21]" too.
The "Recent Studies" section needs to be wikified. There should be links to relevant items that have their own articles (like Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, etc.) and it should be broken into more than one paragraph for readability.
"External links" section is empty. If there's nothing to include as an external link, it shouldn't be a section.
For organization's sake and the flow of the article, I think the "Stages" section should come before the "criticisms section".
The "Early research" and "Recent studies" sections could use some rewriting. The prose is more appropriate for a school term paper than for an encyclopedia. It should be written in a more clear, concise manner, leaving out details that would be in a term paper.
Fixes
Hello, thank you for the wonderful fixes. I have done all of them except for the last one(fixing the prose of the two sections) to the best of my abilities. 
Thank you again, Fredodin (talk) 23:26, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
One of my group members fixed the "Early research" and "Recent studies" to make them sound more like an encyclopedia and now I am going to try and add a picture to help the page. Fredodin (talk) 02:34, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Great. I'll take a look in a minute and see if there's anything else I'd like to see changed. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:44, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
You all have made good progress. It is a good sign that I don't have any particular criticisms about the scientific content. That all seems to be in order. Here are further comments:

The peekaboo image is great. However, the caption is unsourced. You either should source the caption, or put the caption in the text as welll and source it there.
"Bower (1974) demonstrated object permanence in 3-month-olds.[9][10] showed infants a toy car..." This should be fixed.
Also in the "contradictory evidence" section, it says: "Also in the 1991 study the researchers..."  What 1991 study?
That whole paragraph is a bit long and should be broken in two for readability.
The two things I specifically said should be wikilinked in the "recent studies" section were linked, but others were not. I did say "etc." Blindness and deafness should be wikilinked. Language acquisition too. There might be others to wikilink that I'm not mentioning at the moment.
In fact, there are more things in different parts of the article. "Motor development" in the lead, for instance, should be a wikilink.
I think that I fixed everything as best I could. If you find anymore problems please let me know so I can fix them. Thanks again, Fredodin (talk) 03:11, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment from another editor
There are instances of citation overkill in this article. It's not useful to a general reader to have more than two citations strung together at the end of a sentence. They won't know which reference goes with which fact in the sentence. Use citation bundling if it's important to include all the references for that sentence. AstroCog (talk) 13:42, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
There has to be a place in this article where developmental psychology and psychology can be linked, so they then don't have to be relegated to sit in the "See also" section.
Quotes should be used when they represent a unique way of saying something, or when they represent someone's personal opinion. When I read, "while object permanence alone may not predict communicative achievement, object permanence along with several other sensorimotor milestones, plays a critical role in, and interacts with, the communicative development of children with severe disabilities'" I see a quote that should just be paraphrased. Don't use quotes to replace your own writing.AstroCog (talk) 13:51, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! I was able to fix the citation overkill and added the developmental psychology and psychology into the article, but I feel that the direct quote captures the understanding of what the author is trying to say better than if I were to try paraphrase or rewrite in my own words that it would lose its effect. Fredodin (talk) 16:21, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
I think you've done a good job responding to my comments, and I don't see anything else pressing. There are other comments I would make if this was a featured article review, but I believe this sufficiently meets GA requirements. Well done. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
In the section comparing children with the disabilities to non-disabled children, there is a statement that the disabled children only performed worse on tasks involving socialization.  This is immediately followed by a statement saying the disabled children performed worse on non-socialization tasks.  This makes no sense.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.105.95.5 (talk) 18:01, 8 April 2014 (UTC) 

"...a few species of birds such as the carrion crow and food-storing magpies."
I'm very surprised that there is no mention at all of Irene Pepperberg's thirty-plus year research with Alex, the African Grey parrot. Pepperberg published quite extensively in various journals, including, I think, journals in the area of psychology. I know that she described object permanence in Alex, because that was where I first read about the subject. Someone might want to read up on her research and summarize it here. (She also concluded that large parrots have the intelligence of somewhere between a two- and five-year-old child.)
I know that large birds other than carrion crows and food-storing magpies possess object permanence, because I have directly observed it in my Triton cockatoo. As one example, if I go and lie down very quietly behind our sectional sofa, where he can't see me from his stand, he will climb down from the stand and walk along the top of the sofa, periodically looking over the top until finally he spots me, whereupon his behavior indicates, "Hah! I FOUND you!" If he didn't possess object permanance, then once I was out of sight he wouldn't come looking for me.
As another example, one of our favorite games is when I use a permanent marker to draw eyes and a smile on the tip of my index finger. Then, I work it like a puppet and make it peep out of a hole in a cardboard box. I make it say "Hi!" and he responds "Hi!" Then, I make it disappear inside the box, and say, "Where did he go?" Invariably, he walks around and looks on the other side of the box to try to find Finger-Man. He proceeds to keep looking around, off the edge of the sofa, under the pillow. All the while I'm saying, "Huh, I don't know WHERE he went..." If he didn't possess object permanence, then he wouldn't show the slightest interest in finding this creature.
I'm pretty sure that all large parrots and cockatoos possess this same ability. At any rate, I thought I'd point out that you are giving exceedingly short shrift to birds, and especially to Irene Pepperberg's study of object permanence in birds, as part of her lifetime study of bird intelligence.
Specifically, see the following links:
(*) Development of Piagetian Object Permanence in a Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus) (PDF File)

(*) Alex (parrot) (See first paragraph under "Accomplishments")

--Mrs rockefeller (talk) 18:51, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I was reading about object permanence as something that happens around 6 months however I believe my infant cries at night expecting to be comforted and is 3 months old.  Does this mean my infant does not think I exist but that I can come into existence if they cry?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.167.35.42 (talk) 22:24, 1 January 2015 (UTC) 

Doesn't the idea of wave function collapse in a sense nullify the validity of object permanence, in a quantum mechanical sense? In certain versions of the theory, especially Many Worlds, objects can be said to not really exist until their influence enters the observer's 'sphere of influence', when they're presented with a random outcome for that object based on various possibilities. Couldn't a person with a limited sense of 'object permanence' simply be sensing a quantum mechanical truth that there is no real object permanence? --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 06:48, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Is it possible for neuro divergence, brain damage, etc, to hinder an adult's object permanence? For example, someone who lives in a hotel that gets cleaned every day might not be used to the idea that an object left in the room by the person will still be there a day later. 2603:8001:5B01:93E3:15E3:FD46:2204:13BC (talk) 22:25, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I came to the page wondering this. I've started to see memes around ADHD and object permanence and I know that I personally do forget (some) things exist if I can't see them in my home. Shelves instead of cupboards help. StaticSan (talk) 05:48, 15 October 2022 (UTC)