True permanence

A recent study (1) casts doubts on the idea that has been universally accepted – babies, less than a year old, have difficulty with object permanence. When an object is shown to a baby and then hidden, babies below certain age, have shown an inability to assume that the object actually exists. The study shows that such a conclusion is premature and not necessarily true. Using an experiment in which the object's shape was changed when it appeared again from behind a screen and measuring the time the babies spent glancing at it, the study demonstrates that babies actually have pointers in their brain for object permanence.

This is interesting. It can lead to a broader conclusion that most of the conceptual competence of the human brain is in place at birth. The operating system, itself is capable of most of the complex tasks the brain will perform as the baby ages. The results are different later only in that the brain has acquired knowledge and there may not be any improvement in its innate capabilities. Conceptually, such a finding, may also have implications for answering the question of when life begins. If the brain is delivered to the world, with a fully functioning operating system, then it means that such capabilities are inherent at a time before birth. The question will be how far before birth the baby possesses a conceptually capable brain.

Policy in this area has been controversial. Those who dismiss such policy questions either because of ignorance or for convenience may be taking it too lightly.  

(1) Babies remember even as they seem to forget, Published: Monday, December 19, 2011 - 15:26 in Psychology & Sociology