Limits to Infants' Knowledge of Objects: The Case of Magical Appearance

Abstract

Young infants have an impressive knowledge of material objects. They appreciate that distinct objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, are internally cohesive units that maintain their boundaries, and exist continuously in space and time. We report a surprising limit to this body of understanding: Although 8-month-olds responded to the “magical” disappearance of an object as an unexpected event, they did not so respond to a magical appearance. These results suggest that infants' understanding of objects differs from adult cognition in important respects. We discuss four possible ways in which this finding can be reconciled with evidence that infants appreciate the spatiotemporal continuity of objects.

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