Reflexive activities coordinate sensations and motor movements; object permanence is established in which stage?

• A. Preoperational
• B. Sensorimotor
• C. Concrete Operations
• D. Cognitivist

Answer: (B)

Object permanence appears when infants begin to coordinate what they sense with how they act in the world. This happens in the sensorimotor stage, where babies move from simple reflexes to purposeful actions aimed at objects. Through these coordinated explorations, they learn that things exist even when they can’t see them, which is the core idea of object permanence. By the end of this stage, this understanding is well established, laying the groundwork for later symbolic thought and more complex reasoning. The other stages involve different kinds of thinking that come after this foundational sensorimotor coordination.