The Construction Of Reality In The Child

Jean Piaget

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136317019
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Atención sanitaria

This is Volume XX of thirty-two in the Developmental Psychology series. Initially published in 1954, in Piaget's words the study of sensorimotor or practical intelligence in the first two years of development has taught us how the child, at first directly assimilating the external environment to his own activity, later, in order to extend this assimilation, forms an increasing number of schemata which are both more mobile and better able to inter-coordinate. This study looks at the second part of evolution of sensorimotor intelligence, as the description of behavior no longer suffices to account for these new products of intellectual activity; it is the subject's own interpretation of things which we must now try to analyze.

Chapter I
The Development of Object Concept

To understand how the budding intelligence constructs the external world, we must first ask whether the child, in its first months of life, conceives and perceives things as we do, as objects that have substance, that are permanent and of constant dimensions. If this is not the case, it is then necessary to explain how the idea of an object (object concept) is built up. The problem is closely connected with that of space. A world without objects would not present the character of spatial homogeneity and of coherence in displacements that marks our universe. Inversely the absence of “groups” in the changes of position would be equivalent to endless transformations, that is, continuous changes of states in the absence of any permanent object. In this first chapter, then, substance and space should be considered simultaneously, and it is only through abstraction that we shall limit ourselves to object concept.

A question of this sort conditions all other questions. A world composed of permanent objects constitutes not only a spatial universe but also a world obeying the principle of causality in the form of relationships between things, and regulated in time, without continuous annihilations or resurrections. Hence it is a universe both stable and external, relatively distinct from the internal world and one in which the subject places himself as one particular term among all the other terms. A universe without objects, on the other hand, is a world in which space does not constitute a solid environment but is limited to structuring the subject’s very acts; it is a world of pictures each one of which can be known and analyzed but which disappear and reappear capriciously. From the point of view of causality it is a world in which the connections between things are masked by the relations between the action and its desired results; hence the subject’s activity is conceived as being the primary and almost the sole motive power. As far as the boundaries between the self and the external world are concerned, a universe without objects is such that the self, lacking knowledge of itself, is absorbed in external pictures for want of knowing itself; moreover, these pictures center upon the self by failing to include it as a thing among other things, and thus fail to sustain interrelationships independent of the self.

Observation and experimentation combined seem to show that object concept, far from being innate or given readymade in experience, is constructed little by little. Six stages can be discerned, corresponding to those of intellectual development in general. During the first two stages (those of reflexes and the earliest habits), the infantile universe is formed of pictures that can be recognized but that have no substantial permanence or spatial organization. During the third stage (secondary circular reactions), a beginning of permanence is conferred on things by prolongation of the movements of accommodation (grasping, etc.) but no systematic search for absent objects is yet observable. During the fourth stage (“application of known means to new situations”) there is searching for objects that have disappeared but no regard for their displacements. During a fifth stage (about 12 to 18 months old) the object is constituted to the extent that it is permanent individual substance and inserted in the groups of displacements, but the child still cannot take account of changes of position brought about outside the field of direct perception. In a sixth stage (beginning at the age of 16 to 18 months) there is an image of absent objects and their displacements.

§ 1. The First Two Stages: No Special Behavior Related to Vanished Objects

Among all the impressions which assail his consciousness, the child distinguishes and quickly recognizes certain stable groups which we shall call pictures. That is why we have stated (O.I.)¹ that every schema of reproduction assimilation is extended sooner or later in generalizing assimilation and recognitory assimilation combined, recognition being derived from assimilation.

The most elementary example of this process is incontestably that of sucking. The nursling, from the second week of life, is capable of finding the nipple and differentiating it from the surrounding teguments; therein is proof that the schema of sucking in order to nurse begins to be dissociated from the schemata of empty sucking or of sucking at random, and thus results in recognition through acts. So also, after the fifth to the sixth week of life, the child’s smile reveals that he recognizes familiar voices or faces whereas strange sounds or images astonish him. In a general way, every functional use (hence all primary circular reaction) of sucking, of sight, of hearing, of touch, etc., gives rise to recognitions.

But none of that proves or even suggests that in the first weeks of life the universe is really cut up into objects, that is, into things conceived as permanent, substantial, external to the self, and firm in existence even though they do not directly affect perception. In itself, recognition is not at all a recognition of objects and it can be affirmed that none of the characteristics mentioned here defines recognition in its beginnings, for they are the product of an extremely complex intellectual elaboration and not of an elementary act of simple sensorimotor assimilation. True, in the associational theory of recognition it could be asserted that recognition merely confers upon the recognized qualities the constitution of the object itself: if, in order to recognize a thing, it is really necessary to have retained the image of that thing (an image capable of being evoked, and not simply the motor schema readapting at each new contact), and if recognition results from an association between this image and actual sensations, then naturally the conserved image will be able to act in the mind when the object itself is absent and thus suggest the idea of its conservation, Recognition will thenceforth be extended into belief in the permanence of the object itself.

But in the elementary examples now under consideration, recognition does not necessitate any evocation of a mental image. For recognition to begin, it is enough that the attitude previously adopted with regard to the thing be again set in motion and that nothing in the new perception thwart that process. The impression of satisfaction and familiarity peculiar to recognition could chus stem only from this essential fact of the continuity of a schema; the subject recognizes his own reaction before he recognizes the object as such. If the object is new and impedes action, there is no recognition; if the object is too well known or constantly present, the automatism of habit suppresses any opportunity for conscious recognition; but if the object resists the activity of the sensorimotor schema sufficiently to create a momentary maladjustment while giving rise soon after to a successful readjustment, then assimilation is accompanied by recognition. The latter is only the realization of mutual conformity between a given object and a schema all ready to assimilate it. Recognition accordingly begins by being subjective before it becomes object recognition, which of course does not prevent the subject from projecting recognized perception into the undifferentiated universe of his adualistic consciousness (since in the beginning nothing is experienced as subjective). In other words, recognition is at first only a particular instance of assimilation: the thing recognized stimulates and feeds the sensorimotor schema which was previously constructed for its use, and without any necessity for evocation. If this is true, it is self-evident that recognition does not, by itself and without further complication, to lead object concept. In order that the recognized picture may become an object it must be dissociated from the action itself and put in a context of spatial and causal relations independent of the immediate activity. The criterion of this objectification, hence of this rupture in continuity between things perceived and the elementary sensorimotor schemata, is the advent of the behavior patterns related to absent pictures: search for the vanished object, belief in its permanence, evocation, etc. But primary assimilation only implies total continuity between action and environment and does not lead to any reaction beyond the immediate and actual excitation.

Furthermore, independently of recognition, there is no proof that direct perception is at first a perception of objects, When we perceive a motionless thing we place it in a space in which we are ourselves and thus conceive it according to the laws of perspective; the particular point of view from which we see it does not at all prevent us from imagining its depth, its reverse side, its possible displacements, in short, everything that makes it an object characterized by its form and constant dimensions. When we perceive it in motion or simply removed from its initial location we distinguish between these changes of position and changes of state and thus contrast at every moment the thing as it is with the thing as it appears to our sight; again, this dual distinction leads to the permanence characteristic of object concept. But does the child do the same from the very beginnings of his activity? It is permissible, not to say necessary, to doubt it. Regarding the motionless object, only little by little will a suitable spatial structure make it possible to attribute to it the relief, the form, and the depth characteristic of its objective identity. With regard to the thing in motion, the child has not been given the power from the outset to differentiate between changes of position and changes of state and thus to endow flowing perceptions with the quality of geometric “groups,” consequently of objects. On the contrary, failing to locate himself at the outset in space, and to conceive an absolute relativity between the movements of the external world and his own, the child at first does not know how to construct either groups or objects and may well consider the changes in his image of the world as being simultaneously real and constantly created by his own actions.

True, from the earliest stages, certain operations herald the formation of the object: they are, on the one hand, the intercoordinations between heterogeneous schemata which precede the coordination of prehension and of sight (coordination of which creates a special problem) and, on the other hand, the sensorimotor accommodations. These two types of behavior lead the child to transcend the absolutely immediate, and assure a beginning of continuity of pictures perceived.

With regard to the intercoordination of schemata, that of sight and hearing may be mentioned. From the second month of life and the beginning of the third, the child tries to look at the objects he hears (O.I., obs. 44-49), thus revealing the relationship he is establishing between certain sounds and certain visual pictures. It is clear that such coordination endows sensory pictures with a greater degree of solidity than when they are perceived through a single kind of schemata: the fact of expecting to see something instills in the subject who listens to a sound a tendency to consider the visual image as existing before the perception. So also every intersensory coordination (between sucking and prehension, prehension and sight, etc.) contributes to arousing the anticipations which are assurances of the solidity and coherence of the external world.

But that is very far from object concept. The intercoordination of heterogeneous schemata is explained, as we have seen (O.I., Chap. II, §3-4), by a reciprocal assimilation of the presenting schemata. In the case of sight and hearing, therefore, there exists at the outset no objective identity of the visual image with the auditory image (which can also be a tactile or gustatory picture, etc.), but simply a sort of subjective identity; the child tries to see what he hears because each schema of assimilation seeks to encompass the whole universe. Thereafter a coordination of this kind does not yet imply any permanence conceived as independent of present action and perception; discovery of the visual picture announced by the sound is only the extension of the act of trying to see. However, if the act of searching with the glance is, in us adults, accompanied by a belief in the firm existence of the object looked at, we are not justified in assuming that this relation has been obvious from the outset. Just as lip movement or any other functional exercise creates by itself its own object or its own result, so also the nursling may consider the picture which he contemplates as the extension, if not the product, of his effort to see. Perhaps one can reply that the localization of the sound in space, combined with the localization of the visual picture, confer an objectivity on the thing which is simultaneously heard and seen. But as we shall see, the space involved here is still only a space dependent on the immediate action and not precisely an objective space in which things and actions are placed in relation to each other in groups which are independent of the body itself. In short, intersensory coordinations contribute to solidifying the universe by organizing actions but they do not at all suffice to render that universe external to those actions.

Sensorimotor accommodations of every kind often lead not only to anticipations concerning perception (such as the abovementioned coordinations), but also to extensions of the action related to the image perceived, even after the image has disappeared. Here again it may seem at first that object concept has already been acquired, but a more stringent examination dispels this illusion.

The clearest example is that of visual accommodations; when the child knows how to follow with his eyes an image which is being displaced, and above all when he has learned how to extend that movement of the eyes by an appropriate shift of head and torso, he very quickly reveals behavior patterns comparable to a search for the thing seen which then vanished. This phenomenon, particularly distinct in the case of sight, is also found in connection with sucking, prehension, etc.

OBS. 1. Laurent, as early as the second day, seems to seek with his lips the breast which has escaped him (O.I., obs. 2). From the third day he gropes more systematically to find it (O.I., obs. 4-5, 8, and 10). From 0;1 (2) and 0;1 (3) he searches in the same way for his thumb, which brushed his mouth or came out of it (O.I., obs. 17, 18, etc.). Thus it seems that contact of the lips with the nipple and the thumb gives rise to a pursuit of those objects, once they have disappeared, a pursuit connected with reflex activity in the first case and with a nascent or acquired habit in the second case.

OBS. 2. In the realm of sight, Jacqueline, as early as 0;2 (27) follows her mother with her eyes, and when her mother leaves the visual field, continues to look in the same direction until the picture reappears.

Same observation with Laurent at 052 (1). I look at him through the hood of his bassinet and from time to time I appear at a more or less constant point; Laurent then watches that point when I am out of his sight and obviously expects to see me reappear.

Noteworthy too are visual explorations (O.I., obs. 33), alternate glances (O.I., obs. 35) and reversed glances (ibid., obs. 36) which attest to a sort of expectation of some familiar picture.

OBS. 3. Analagous behavior is observable with respect to hearing from the time coordination exists between this function and that of sight, that is to say from the time movements of eyes and head objectively bear witness to some searching. Thus at 0;2 (6) Laurent finds with his glance an electric kettle whose lid I shake (see O.I., obs. 49). When I interrupt the noise, Laurent looks at me a moment, then again looks at the kettle even though it is now silent; hence we may assume that he expects new sounds to come from it, in other words, he behaves with regard to the interrupted sound as he does with regard to the visual pictures which have just disappeared.

OBS. 4. Prehension gives rise to behavior patterns of the same kind. Just as the child seems to expect to see again that which he has just seen and to hear again the sound which has just ceased, so also, when he begins to grasp, he seems to be convinced of the possibility that his hand will rediscover the object it has just relinquished. Thus during the behavior patterns described in O.I., obs. 52-54, Laurent, considerably before knowing how to grasp what he sees, constantly lets go and recaptures the objects he is handling. At 0;2 (7) in particular, Laurent holds a sheet in his hand for a moment, then lets it go and grasps it again soon afterward. Or he holds his hands together, separates them, holds them together again, etc. Finally it may be recalled that as soon as coordination between prehension and sight has been established, the child brings before his eyes everything he grasps outside the visual field, thus revealing expectation comparable to that which we have noted in connection with hearing and sight (See O.I., obs. 85, 89, and 92).

OBS. 5. A reaction slightly more complex than these is that of the child who stops looking at a certain picture and directs his glance elsewhere and who then returns to the first picture; that is the equivalent, in the realm of primary circular reactions, of the deferred reactions which we shall analyze in connection with the second stage.

Thus Lucienne, at 0;3 (9) sees me at the extreme left of her visual field and smiles vaguely. She then looks in different directions, in front of her and to the right, but constantly returns to the place in which she sees me and dwells on it every time for a moment.

At 0;4 (26) she takes the breast but turns when I call her and smiles at me. Then she resumes nursing, but several times in succession, despite my silence, she turns directly to the position from which she can see me. She does it again after a pause of a few minutes. Then I withdraw; when she turns without finding me her expression is one of mingled disappointment and expectation.

At 0;4 (29) same reaction; she is on my lap but with her back to me, and sees my face by turning very much to the right. She then constantly returns to that position.

At first these facts and analogous ones which it would be easy to accumulate seem to indicate a universe similar to ours. The gustatory, visual, auditory, or tactile images that the child ceases...