Object Manipulation and Interaction

Children first get to know objects by handling them in everyday play. Through many kinds of actions, for example shaking, stacking, twisting, pulling, and more, they begin to notice what each object allows them to do. Researchers call these possibilities affordances. As exploration continues, children link what they see with how they move, learn which actions work, refine their movements with feedback, and plan short sequences to reach a goal. Real object use and pretend play develop together, with hands on experience strengthening symbolic play and imagined scenes helping children organize real world problem solving. Taken together, this work presents object manipulation as a setting where affordance perception, action planning, and learning through feedback unfold in daily life.

Relevant Publications

Young children’s interactions with objects: Play as practice and practice as play.
Lockman, J. J., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (2021).
Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 3(1), 165–186. [DOI]

Infant Object Manipulation and Play.
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Lockman, J. J. (2020).
In J. J. Lockman & C. S. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Infant Development: Brain, Behavior, and Cultural Context (pp. 520–548). Cambridge University Press.