Content area
Full Text
Contents
- Abstract
- Experiment 1
- Method
- Subjects
- Apparatus
- Procedure
- Test 1: Single visible displacement
- Test 2: Sequential visible displacement
- Test 3: Visible displacement with three covers
- Test 4: Two successive visible displacements
- Test 5: Three successive visible displacements
- Test 6: Single invisible displacement
- Test 7: Sequential invisible displacement
- Results and Discussion
- Experiment 2
- Method
- Subjects
- Apparatus
- Procedure
- Results and Discussion
- Visible Displacement Tests
- Invisible Displacement Tests
- General Discussion
Figures and Tables
Abstract
Human analog tests of object permanence were administered to adult cats in order to assess as accurately as possible their developmental level in this particular cognitive capacity and to analyze their search behavior in situations in which an object has disappeared. Experiment 1 compared two groups, one that received the tests in their usual order of presentation and another that received first the invisible displacement tests and then the visible displacement tests. The results are conflicting with a previous research conducted by Triana and Pasnak (1981): cats are able to solve problems with visible displacements but fail with invisible displacement. Experiment 2 compared two modalities of object disappearance: The object was hidden under a cover through either its front or its rear panel. This experiment confirmed, in a five-choice hiding task, that cats are unable to understand invisible displacements: They searched for the object in the last location they had seen it disappear or under the nearest cover from this location.
During the last 15 years, Piaget's theory and methods have been used to investigate the cognitive abilities and development of animals (Doré & Dumas, 1986; Etienne, 1973a, 1984). Although some data are available on the development of preoperational cognitive abilities in nonhuman primates as well as on the development of sensorimotor intelligence, causality, and the space concept, most studies have been devoted to the analysis of object permanence.
In Piaget's theoretical framework, object permanence is one of the most important acquisitions of the preverbal or sensorimotor period (0 to 2 years). Its development is divided into six stages. In the first two stages, infants show very little interest in objects, and when an object is hidden in front of them, they stare at the point of...