Zelazo – infancy

Executive function emerges in infancy and may be measured, for example, at the end of infancy by looking at children’s ability to solve very simple problems like, an object is hidden very conspicuously at a particular location, and then a delay is imposed, and infants are provided with the opportunity to search for that hidden object. And in order to search successfully, they need to keep the object in mind, and use a representation of that hidden object in order to guide their responding. 

And in some versions of this type of task include, for example, Piaget’s famous A not B task where an object is first hidden at one location, and the infant is allowed to retrieve it, and then the infant is shown the object being hidden very conspicuously at a new location. And a delay is imposed. And at about nine months of age or so, infants tend to go back to that initial location even though they just saw it being hidden at a new location. 

And the ability to search flexibly in that context, to inhibit the tendency simply to go back to the location where the object was found previously, and keep the relevant, current location of the object in mind, and act flexibly in light of that representation, that’s a good example of executive function in the infancy period.