The A-not-B error is a mistake made by infants in Jean Piaget's object permanence tasks, in which a baby who has repeatedly found a hidden toy at one location, location A, continues to search for it at that same location even after watching an experimenter hide it at a new location, location B. Infants younger than about ten months typically make this error, reaching back to location A despite having just seen the toy moved, which Piaget took as evidence that their understanding of object permanence is still tied to their own past actions rather than to an objective grasp that the object continues to exist independently of where it was last found. By around twelve months, most infants search correctly at the new location.
Facts
Core ClaimThe A-not-B error is an incomplete or absent schema of object permanence, seen in the sensorimotor stage of Piaget's theory, in which infants keep searching at location A after an object is moved to B. 1 Classification
Type of PhenomenonDevelopmental Phenomenon 1 Connections
Associated With
Documented the error in his own object permanence tasks with infants.
Sources
1. A-not-B error (Wikipedia)
Lead paragraph
The A-not-B error is an incomplete or absent schema of object permanence, normally observed during the sensorimotor stage of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development.
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
The A-not-B error is an incomplete or absent schema of object permanence, normally observed during the sensorimotor stage of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development.
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