You might have seen how amused young children are when adults play “peekaboo” with them. The adults hide their face with their hands, then pop back into the view of the child and say “Peekaboo, I see you!”. Why is this so much fun? Well, because until object permanence is formed, the child actually thinks that the adult’s face disappears and pops back into existence! When you cover your face with your hands, you do not exist anymore. When you remove your hands, you exist again. Spooky, isn’t it? That’s how an infant’s mind works, though.

Similarly, you might have witnessed how young children, when they play hide-and-seek, hide by simply covering their eyes. This is explained by cognitive egocentrism—if they don’t see you, they actually believe that you don’t see them either.

You’ll nd more on this in this short article: “Why do children hide by covering their eyes?”

https://tinyurl.com/mk7baeb