A Connection between Object Understanding, Social Referencing, and Object Permanence in One-Year-Olds

Forty-one infants (12-month olds; 18-month-olds) were administered object permanence tests and then an experimenter verbally delivered an affective message about a toy not present in the room. Older infants could socially reference the toy not in front of them and attributed the affective message accordingly while the younger could not.