ABSTRACT
Physical objects can causally interact with each other. Knowing any facts about physical objects is likely to involve an ability to track causal interactions. Minimally, this involves being able to distinguish interactions from mere contingencies. This chapter reflects on features common to all physical objects suggests that knowing even simple facts about physical objects plausibly involves three abilities: to segment objects; to represent them as persisting; and to track some of their causal interactions. It introduces the experiments and discoveries that will guide one’s thinking in working out how humans first come to know facts about particular physical objects. The chapter also introduces some methods most commonly used in research on human infants. It helps readers to become familiar with experiments involving habituation, violation-of-expectation, anticipatory looking and search behaviours. The fact that the principle of no action at a distance describes how infants segment objects in one case is interesting but not by itself terribly informative.
