Object disappearance and error in Piaget's Stage IV task

Piaget attributes perseverative error in infant manual search to the failure of the infant to conceive of objects as permanent entities which retain their identity when hidden at successive locations A and B. An experiment was performed to test this explanation in which search was compared under three conditions: when the object was hidden at A and B, when the object was covered but visible at A and B, and when the object was visible and uncovered at A and B. Errors occurred under all three conditions taking the form of a conflict in which infants searched persistently either at A or at B. The conflict was at a maximum when the object was hidden, but was evident even when the object was visible but covered. It is suggested that errors may reflect lack of coordination between egocentric and visual frames of reference in relation to which the object is located.