The effects of motor skill on object permanence

Abstract Piaget found that infants in the first year of life will not remove a cloth or a cup that they have seen cover a toy. Part of the difficulty is a motor skill problem. However, deficits in motor skill are not sufficient to account for the failure in the situation. We cannot assume that out of sight is out of mind for such infants for they will reach out to obtain an object that has been made to go out of sight by switching off the room lights, leaving the baby in total darkness.