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In Piaget's theory of cognitive development, the sensorimotor stage, which spans from birth to approximately two years of age, is characterized by the child's exploration and interaction with their environment primarily through sensory experiences and motor actions. During this stage, infants learn about the world through their senses and actions, such as looking, grasping, and moving.

A key element of this stage is the development of object permanence, where children realize that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen. This marks the beginning of their understanding of the distinction between themselves and the external world; they start to recognize that they are separate beings interacting with their surroundings. This understanding sets the foundation for more complex cognitive processes in subsequent stages.

In contrast, the preoperational stage involves symbolic thinking and language use but does not yet include a full understanding of conservation or the abilities of logical reasoning that develop later. The concrete operational stage introduces logical thinking about concrete events but does not focus on self-awareness as distinct from the external environment. The formal operational stage, which comes after concrete operations, is centered on abstract thinking and hypothetical reasoning, further building on earlier stages of self-awareness and understanding of the world.