婴儿动作理解的研究回顾与展望

婴儿对他人动作意图的正确推理是一种重要的社会认知能力,有利于婴儿根据他人意图来调整自己的行为以适应更好的社会互动.婴儿的这种能力作为一种重要的社会认知根源,对自身的社会反应、心理理论以及语言理解都有重要的影响.但是婴儿是如何获得这种能力的呢?经验论认为是学习的结果,但目的论则认为是婴儿与生俱来的一种能力.两种理论都获得了一些实证支持,目前还没有一致结论.这类研究对具身认知、身心关系的探讨有一定启发作用.     

0―1.5岁婴儿表征能力的研究概述

就0-1.5岁婴儿的知识表征方面,该文主要介绍了国外的一些研究成果,指出婴儿的表征能力由感知表征向意义表征发展.即使很小的婴儿都已经有了相当复杂的表征能力,能初步感知典型的变化,识别不同种类物体的物体,表征事物与事物之间的空间关系、数量关系、因果关系等,对动因有一定的理解,并逐渐形成概念和图示     

特质推理的神经机制:来自脑成像的证据

特质推理一直是社会认知研究的重要主题,它包括有意图的特质推理和自发特质推理。随着社会认知神经科学蓬勃发展,研究者开始探讨二者的神经机制。fMRI研究表明,特质推理期间主要大脑活动定位于mPFC和TPJ这两个广泛脑区,有意图和自发特质推理分别更多地激活mPFC与TPJ。ERP研究发现,P300是特质推理期间与不一致信息探测和解决过程相关的EEG成分,有意图和自发特质推理在时间进程上大多同步,却激活了不同脑区。总之,当前已积累了较多可信的脑成像证据,从社会认知神经科学的视角探讨特质推理的神经机制是未来较有前途的一个方向。     

2—3岁婴儿推理思维萌芽及教育方法探索

以往的研究认为儿童要到5、6岁才能进行推理，而本文作者在对一个婴儿进行追踪研究的过程中却发现约从2岁起，婴儿的认知活动中就有类似推理的东西出现。于是通过分析推理思维产生的前提条件一语言入手，并运用逻辑学上的推理法则检验婴儿的思维活动，证明2—3岁的婴儿能在有限的、熟悉的范围内理解和运用日常概念进行判断推理。     

3-5岁儿童意图状态推理中的偏差现象

以判断正误的得分和原因解释的得分作为测量指标,以90名儿童为被试,采用意图冲突推理任务来考察3-5岁儿童对意图状态推理的偏差。结果表明在意图冲突推理任务中,与自己打算去做某事的情况相比,儿童在自己不打算去做某事的条件下更容易正确推理他人的意图,表现出了推理偏差。此结果支持了表征不可通达假设。     

语言可以引导婴儿如何认识世界

<正>语言是婴儿认识世界,发展认知能力的基础。当婴儿能够说出第一个词汇时,语言的表达和对事物的认知就建立起了强烈的连接。有观点认为对物体的命名有助于婴儿建立这种连接关系,因为婴儿常通过语言标签来识记物体各方面的特征,区分物体所属的类别。同时,语言标签也反过来影响婴儿对事物的理解。     

非形式推理的研究及展望

非形式推理目前被界定为对结构不良的、用自然语言表述的、没有固定答案的、需要进行归纳的问题的推理,推理的结果是个体对问题形成一定的态度和观点。已有研究探讨了非形式推理的一般特征、衡量标准、影响推理的个体特征,以及学生非形式推理能力的培养方式等问题。作者认为开展非形式推理及其影响因素的研究将促进人格特征与认知关系的研究,并有广泛的教育意义,同时提出了有待深入研究的课题。     

婴儿数量表征的客体档案和类比模型

人对数量的表征及其发展是心理学研究的重要问题之一。20世纪70年代以来,国外对婴儿数量表征的研究取得了一系列理论和方法的进步。文章简要介绍了婴儿数量辨别和推理能力的研究方法,对婴儿数量表征相关的理论进行了重点讨论。大量详实的证据表明,婴儿拥有一个“天生的”数量机制,这为人数学能力的发展提供了基础。     

婴儿运动经验与母婴社会性情绪互动行为的关系

本研究考察了个体早期自主位移运动——爬行经验与母婴社会性情绪互动的关系。对79名8、9个月婴儿的母亲进行访谈,结果发现,在8个月婴儿中,婴儿会爬与否对母婴社会性情绪互动行为有一定作用,但这种作用没有达到显著水平;在9个月时,婴儿是否会爬则对母婴社会性情绪互动行为有显著影响,表明爬行经验对母婴社会性情绪互动行为的影响存在累积效应与年龄特异性。     

婴儿如何认识他心：“似我”假说述评

“似我”指婴儿借助“我他对等”的认识解读他人行为、意图和心理状态,并通过他人间的互动信息推断和调整自身行为。具体表现在：婴儿能够识别出他人的模仿,能够理解他人的感知,以及提取他人的互动信息。将他人视为“似我”,需依赖动作表征、第一人称体验以及理解他人意图的作用。“似我”假说肯定了模仿与把握他人心理状态以及建立社交互动的关系,促使研究者认识到与他人保持“心理视角”的一致对提升儿童共情能力的价值,凸显了心智化课堂对学习效果的推动作用。     

Nine-months-old infants do not need to know what the agent prefers in order to reason about its goals: on the role of preference and persistence in infants' goal-attribution

Human infants readily interpret others' actions as goal-directed and their understanding of previous goals shapes their expectations about an agent's future goal-directed behavior in a changed situation. According to a recent proposal (Luo & Baillargeon, 2005), infants' goal-attributions are not sufficient to support such expectations if the situational change involves broadening the set of choice-options available to the agent, and the agent's preferences among this broadened set are not known. The present study falsifies this claim by showing that 9-month-olds expect the agent to continue acting towards the previous goal even if additional choice-options become available for which there is no preference-related evidence. We conclude that infants do not need to know about the agent's preferences in order to form expectations about its goal-directed actions. Implications for the role of action persistency and action selectivity are discussed.     

儿童对生物目的指向性的认知发展

目的指向性是生物的基本特征,是区分生物和非生物的重要指标。学前儿童能否根据目的指向性来区分生物与非生物,主要有3种观点：能区分、不能区分、认为学前儿童只能理解动物具有目的指向性,但不能理解植物的目的指向性。该文分层综述了学前儿童对生物包括人、动物和植物目的指向性的认知及学前儿童对不熟悉物体目的指向性的归因研究,并提出了需要进一步探讨的问题。     

Twelve-month-old infants interpret action in context

Two experiments assessed infants' understanding that actions that occur in sequence may be related to an overarching goal. Experiment 1 tested whether embedding an ambiguous action (touching the lid of a box) in a sequence that culminated with an action infants readily construe as goal-directed (grasping a toy inside the box) would alter infants' construal of the ambiguous action. Having seen the ambiguous action in this context, infants later construed this action in isolation as being directed at the toy within the box. Experiment 2 tested whether infants related the two actions on the basis of the temporal or the causal relation between them. When the causal relation was disrupted but the temporal relation was preserved, infants no longer related the two actions. These findings indicate that 12-month-old infants relate single actions to overarching goals and that they do so by construing goal-directed action in a causal framework.     

Six-and-a-half-month-old children positively attribute goals to human action and to humanoid-robot motion

Recent infant studies indicate that goal attribution (understanding of goal-directed action) is present very early in infancy. We examined whether 6.5-month-olds attribute goals to agents and whether infants change the interpretation of goal-directed action according to the kind of agent. We conducted three experiments using the visual habituation paradigm. In Experiment 1, we investigated whether 6.5-month-olds attribute goals to human action. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether 6.5-month-olds attribute goals to humanoid-robot motion. In Experiment 3, we tested whether infants attribute goals to a moving box. The agent used in Experiment 3 had no human-like appearance. The results of the three experiments show that infants positively attribute goals to both human action (Experiment 1) and humanoid motion (Experiment 2) but not to a moving box (Experiment 3). These results suggest that 6.5-month-olds tend to interpret certain actions in terms of goals, their reasoning about these actions is based on a sophisticated teleological representation, and that human-like appearance of agents may influence this teleological reasoning in early infancy.     

Do as I do: 7-month-old infants selectively reproduce others' goals

In the current study, we tested whether 7-month-old infants would selectively imitate the goal-relevant aspects of an observed action. Infants saw an experimenter perform an action on one of two small toys and then were given the opportunity to act on the toys. Infants viewed actions that were either goal-directed or goal-ambiguous, and that represented either completed or uncompleted goals. Infants reproduced the goal of the experimenter only in those cases where the action was goal-directed, in both the complete and incomplete goal conditions. These results provide the first evidence that infants as young as 7 months of age selectively imitate actions based on their goal-directedness, and that they are able to analyze the goals of even uncompleted actions. Even during the first year of life, infants' sensitivity to goal-directed action is expressed not only in their responses in visual habituation procedures, but also in their overt actions.     

Do infants provide evidence that the mirror system is involved in action understanding?

The mirror neuron theory of action understanding makes predictions concerning how the limited motor repertoire of young infants should impact on their ability to interpret others’ actions. In line with this theory, an increasing body of research has identified a correlation between infants’ abilities to perform an action, and their ability to interpret that action as goal-directed when performed by others. In this paper, I will argue that the infant data does by no means unequivocally support the mirror neuron theory of action understanding and that alternative interpretations of the data should be considered. Furthermore, some of this data can be better interpreted in terms of an alternative view, which holds that the role of the motor system in action perception is more likely to be one of enabling the observer to predict, after a goal has been identified, how that goal will be attained.     

4~7岁儿童对生物目的指向性的认知发展模式

采用结构式访谈法,通过计算机模拟真实情景的动画方式,系统探查4~7岁儿童在目的指向性维度上的本体区分、因果认知发展模式以及在此维度上的朴素生物学“理论”的形成。结果表明：（1）4~7岁儿童在目的指向性维度上进行本体区分的认知发展模式,经历了从低到高的4个发展水平,即目的论模式——基于动物模式——基于生物模式——基于本体区分模式;（2）4~7岁儿童对目的指向性的因果认知与本体区分表现出一致性发展模式,表明学前儿童在目的指向性维度上逐渐形成了朴素生物学“理论”;（3）5~6岁是儿童对目的指向性认知的快速发展期,领域知识对儿童的认知发展具有明显的促进作用,但是受年龄和领域任务的影响     

Infant's perception of goal-directed actions performed by a mechanical device

The present work investigated whether by the end of the first year, infants interpret actions performed by a mechanical device as goal-directed and why they would do so. Using a modified version of the Woodward (1998) habituation paradigm, 9- and 12-month-old infants were tested in a condition in which they saw a mechanical claw performing an action (Study 1). When infants viewed the claw grasping and transporting objects to the back of a stage, 12-month-old but not 9-month-old infants interpreted the action as goal-directed. In Study 2, 9-month-olds received prior to habituation an information phase showing infants how a human held and operated the claw. This enrichment of infants’ knowledge enabled 9-month-old infants to interpret the action display as goal-directed. The role of the developing means-end understanding and tool-use for infants’ interpretation of actions performed by a mechanical device is discussed.     

Outcome producing potential influences twelve-month-olds’ interpretation of a novel action as goal-directed

Learning about a novel, goal-directed action is a complex process. It requires identifying the outcome of the action and linking the action to its outcome for later use in new situations to predict the action or to anticipate its outcome. We investigated the hypothesis that linking a novel action to a salient change in the environment is critical for infants to assign a goal to the novel action. We report a study in which we show that 12-month-old infants, who were provided with prior experience with a novel action accompanied with a salient visible outcome in one context, can interpret the same action as goal-directed even in the absence of the outcome in another context. Our control condition shows that prior experience with the action, but without the salient effect, does not lead to goal-directed interpretation of the novel action. We also found that, for the case of 9-month-olds infants, prior experience with the outcome producing potential of the novel action does not facilitate a goal-directed interpretation of the action. However, this failure was possibly due to difficulties with generalizing the learnt association to another context rather than with linking the action to its outcome.     

Infants' perception of goal-directed actions: development through cue-based bootstrapping

It is now widely accepted that sensitivity to goal-directed actions emerges during the first year of life. However, controversy still surrounds the question of how this sensitivity emerges and develops. One set of views emphasizes the role of observing behavioral cues, while another emphasizes the role of experience with producing own action. In a series of four experiments we contrast these two views. In Experiment 1, it was shown that infants as young as 6 months old can interpret an unfamiliar human action as goal-directed when the action involves equifinal variations. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that 12- and 9-month-olds are also able to attribute goals to an inanimate action if it displays behavioral cues such as self-propelledness and an action-effect. In Experiment 4, we found that even 6-months-olds can encode the goal object of an inanimate action if all three cues, equifinality, self-propelledness and an action-effect, were present. These findings suggest that the ability to ascribe goal-directedness does not necessarily emerge from hands-on experience with particular actions and that it is independent from the specific appearance of the actor as long as sufficient behavioral cues are available. We propose a cue-based bootstrapping model in which an initial sensitivity to behavioral cues leads to learning about further cues. The further cues in turn inform about different kinds of goal-directed agents and about different types of actions. By uniting an innate base with a learning process, cue-based bootstrapping can help reconcile divergent views on the emergence of infants' ability to understand actions as goal-directed.