Effects of adults’ contingent responding on infants’ behavior in ambiguous situations

We examined the effect of adults’ contingency in responding to infants’ behavior in an ambiguous situation in two experiments. In Experiment 1, forty-four 12-month-old infants were exposed to an ambiguous toy. An unfamiliar adult responded either contingently or non-contingently to the infant’s bids and then presented the toy and provided positive information. During toy presentation, infants in the non-contingent condition looked less at the experimenter than infants in the contingent condition. In a concluding free-play situation infants in the non-contingent condition played less and tended to touch the toy less. In Experiment 2 (forty-four 12-month-old infants), the parent either responded promptly or with a delay each time the infant made contact initiatives and then presented an ambiguous toy and delivered the positive information. The infants in the non-contingent condition tended to look less at the parent during toy presentation and also tended to play less with the toy during the concluding free-play situation. The findings show that adults’ contingency in responding influences infants’ behavior in ambiguous situations.     

Does contingency in adults’ responding influence 12-month-old infants’ social referencing?

In two experiments we examined the influence of contingent versus non-contingent responding on infant social referencing behavior. EXPERIMENT 1: Forty 12-month-old infants were exposed to an ambiguous toy in a social referencing situation. In one condition an unfamiliar adult who in a previous play situation had responded contingently to the infant’s looks gave the infant positive information about the toy. In the other condition an unfamiliar adult who previously had not responded contingently delivered the positive information. EXPERIMENT 2: Forty-eight 12-month-old infants participated in Experiment 2. In this experiment it was examined whether the familiarity of the adult influences infants’ reactions to contingency in responding. In one condition a parent who previously had responded contingently to the infant’s looks provided positive information about the ambiguous toy, and in the other condition a parent who previously had not responded contingently provided the positive information. The infants looked more at the contingent experimenter in Experimenter 1, and also played more with the toy after receiving positive information from the contingent experimenter. No differences in looking at the parent and in playing with the toy were found in Experiment 2. The results indicate that contingency in responding, as well as the familiarity of the adult, influence infants’ social referencing behavior.     

Does contingency in adults’ responding influence 12-month-old infants’ social referencing?

In two experiments we examined the influence of contingent versus non-contingent responding on infant social referencing behavior. EXPERIMENT 1: Forty 12-month-old infants were exposed to an ambiguous toy in a social referencing situation. In one condition an unfamiliar adult who in a previous play situation had responded contingently to the infant’s looks gave the infant positive information about the toy. In the other condition an unfamiliar adult who previously had not responded contingently delivered the positive information. EXPERIMENT 2: Forty-eight 12-month-old infants participated in Experiment 2. In this experiment it was examined whether the familiarity of the adult influences infants’ reactions to contingency in responding. In one condition a parent who previously had responded contingently to the infant’s looks provided positive information about the ambiguous toy, and in the other condition a parent who previously had not responded contingently provided the positive information. The infants looked more at the contingent experimenter in Experimenter 1, and also played more with the toy after receiving positive information from the contingent experimenter. No differences in looking at the parent and in playing with the toy were found in Experiment 2. The results indicate that contingency in responding, as well as the familiarity of the adult, influence infants’ social referencing behavior.     

Effects of maternal inattentiveness on infant social referencing

The aim of the study was to clarify the meaning of infant looking behaviour when the infant is confronted with an ambiguous situation in order to disentangle the two processes social referencing and attachment. Ninety‐six 12‐month‐olds, presented with an ambiguous or an unambiguous toy, were assigned to one of four conditions; mother inattentive, mother conveyed positive information, and mother conveyed negative information about the ambiguous toy. In the fourth condition (control condition), an unambiguous toy was presented (mother inattentive). The ambiguous situation elicited more referencing looks than the unambiguous situation. During the presentation of the ambiguous toy, infants with inattentive mothers referenced the experimenter more than infants whose mothers provided guidance. In the following free‐play situation, infants in the inattentive group referenced mother to a higher degree than did the other infants. They played less with the toy than infants who had received positive information and infants in the control group, and were less eager to explore the surroundings than infants in the other three groups. When mother turned attentive the infants ceased referencing her and showed an interest in exploring. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of goal-directed behavior in intention attribution in children

In this study, we addressed the question of the nature of the information needed by 13-month-old infants to understand another agent's intentions. In two experiments, an experimenter was either unable or unwilling to give a toy to an infant. Importantly, an implement (a gutter in which the toy could roll down toward the infant) was used to make the experimenter's behavior as similar as possible in the two conditions. When the experimenter remained still in both conditions, infants did not behave differently according to the experimenter's intentions, suggesting that they did not infer them. By contrast, in a second experiment, where the experimenter performed an action directed toward the gutter in both conditions, the infants looked away from the experimental setting more often and longer in the unwilling condition than in the unable condition. They also looked more toward the experimenter in the unable condition than in the unwilling condition. Therefore, we conclude that an agent's intentional attitude can already be inferred by a 13-month-old provided that this intention is concretely shown through a goal-directed action.     

Infants' understanding of actions performed by mechanical devices

Recent research suggests that 9-month-old infants tested in a modified version of the A-not-B search task covertly imitate actions performed by the experimenter. The current study examines whether infants also simulate actions performed by mechanical devices, and whether this varies with whether or not they have been familiarized with the devices and their function. In Experiment 1, infants observed hiding and retrieving actions performed by a pair of mechanical claws on the A-trials, and then searched for the hidden toy on the B-trial. In Experiment 2, infants were first familiarized with the experimenter and the claws but not their function. In Experiment 3, infants were familiarized with the function of the claws. The results revealed that search errors were at chance levels in Experiments 1 and 2, but a significant proportion of the infants showed the A-not-B error in Experiment 3. These results suggest that 9-month-old infants are less likely to simulate observed actions performed by mechanical devices than by human agents, unless they are familiarized with the function of the devices so that their actions are perceived as goal-directed.     

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.     

Infants' ability to use object kind information for object individuation.

The present studies investigate infants reliance on object kind information in solving the problem of object individuation. Two experiments explored whether adults, 10- and 12-month-old infants could use their knowledge of ducks and cars to individuate an ambiguous array consisting of a toy duck perched on a toy car into two objects. A third experiment investigated whether 10-month-old infants could use their knowledge of cups and shoes to individuate an array consisting of a cup perched on a shoe into two objects. Ten-month-old infants failed to use object kind information alone to resolve the ambiguity with both pairs of objects. In contrast, infants this age succeeded in using spatiotemporal information to segment the array into two objects, i.e. they succeeded if shown that the duck moved independently relative to the car, or the cup relative to the shoe. Twelve-month-old infants, as well as adults, succeeded at object individuation on the basis of object kind information alone. These findings shed light on the developmental course of object individuation and provide converging evidence for the Object-first Hypothesis [Xu, F., Carey, S., 1996; Xu, F., 1997b]. Early on, infants may represent only one concept that provides criteria for individuation, namely physical object; kind concepts such as duck, car, cup, and shoe may be acquired later in the first year of life.     

Why do young infants fail to search for hidden objects?

Recent evidence indicates that infants as young as 3.5 months of age understand that objects continue to exist when hidden (Baillargeon, 1987a; Baillargeon & DeVos, 1990). Why, then, do infants fail to search for hidden objects until 7 to 8 months of age? The present experiments tested whether 5.5-month-old infants could distinguish between correct and incorrect search actions performed by an experimenter. In Experiment 1, a toy was placed in front of (possible event) or under (impossible event) a clear cover. Next, a screen was slid in front of the objects, hiding them from view. A hand then reached behind the screen and reappeared holding the toy. The infants looked reliably longer at the impossible than at the possible event, suggesting that they understood that the hand's direct reaching action was sufficient to retrieve the toy when it stood in front of but not under the clear cover. The same results were obtained in a second condition in which a toy was placed in front of (possible event) or behind (impossible event) a barrier. In Experiment 2, a toy was placed under the right (possible event) or the left (impossible event) of two covers. After a screen hid the objects, a hand reached behind the screen's right edge and reappeared first with the right cover and then with the toy. The infants looked reliably longer at the impossible than at the possible event, suggesting that they realized that the hand's sequence of action was sufficient to retrieve the toy when it stood under the right but not the left cover. A control condition supported this interpretation. Together, the results of Experiments 1 and 2 indicate that by 5.5 months of age, infants not only represent hidden objects, but are able to identify the actions necessary to retrieve these objects. The implications of these findings for a problem solving explanation of young infants' failure to retrieve hidden objects are considered.     

Developmental emergence of self-referential and inhibition mechanisms of body movements underling felicitous behaviors

In young infants, activation or inhibition of body movements on perception of environmental events is important to enable them to act on the world or understand the world. To reveal the development of this ability, we observed movement patterns in all four limbs under the two experimental conditions. Infants assigned to the interaction condition were provided a connection between their arm and a toy, which allowed movements of the critical arm to produce movements in the overhead mobile. Infants assigned to the stimulation condition were presented with similar movements of the toy emulated by the experimenter. In 3-month-old infants, the arm movements increased under the interaction condition, whereas they decreased under the stimulation condition. Such condition-dependent behavior dissociation was not observed in 2-month-old infants. These results suggest that the distinct behavior of an "observer" of environmental events was differentiated from that of a "player" interacting with the surroundings between 2 and 3 months of age. The emergence of differentiation of behaviors points toward the development of self-referential and inhibition mechanisms in the perceptual-motor and attention/evaluation system in the cortico-subcortical network.     

Attention to eye contact opportunity and facial motion by three-month-old infants

Thirty-two 3-month-old infants participated in two experiments showing color videotapes of facial stimuli in a paired comparison format. In Experiment 1, the experimenter, serving as the stimulus, looked either directly at the infant or averted his gaze to the side; the face was presented either still or in motion. Eye contact opportunity had no effect while motion of the head was an effective attractor of visual fixation. In Experiment 2, the amount of available eye contact opportunity was parametrically varied by occluding the eyes with different patterns of blinking, each at the same rate. The no-motion 100% eye contact available condition received less attention than the three blinking stimuli, which were all equally attended to, though they varied with respect to the amount of eye contact opportunity they afforded. The contrast in effect of eye contact availability and rather subtle stimulus motion would imply that 3-month-old infants are comparatively insensitive to being the object of another's visual regard.     

Infant’s gaze in a teasing task with an experimenter or parent: A naturalistic approach

We assessed infant’s gaze in a teasing task in New York City public spaces. The task was administered to two different groups of 5- to 13-month-old infants. We used a between participants design across two studies. In Study 1 an experimenter administered the task to these infants (n = 79), whereas a parent did so in Study 2 (n = 79). The adult engaged the infant with a toy and then pulled it away to one side by counting to 7. A second trial to the other side was repeated. Infants passed the teasing task if they looked to the adult’s face within the first 5 seconds after removing the toy in at least one trial. In Study 1, we found that infants looked to the experimenter’s face after teasing by 7 months of age. In Study 2, infants did not show any significant gazes to the parent’s face after teasing at any age. Most trained parents successfully administered the teasing task to their infant. A teasing game played by an adult stranger (e.g., experimenter) may be optimal to elicit infant’s gaze in a naturalistic setting. Implications for developing cost-effective social-cognitive milestone measures in non-laboratory settings are discussed.     

Knowing when you don't know enough: Children's judgements about ambiguous information

Two experiments were carried out to find out whether young children's failure to realise when messages are ambiguous is specific to verbally transmitted information about a person's intended meaning. In Experiment 1, children judged whether they had been told/shown enough to identify which one of a set of cards the experimenter had chosen. In one game the experimenter gave verbal messages about her chosen cards, and in a second game, she gave visual messages. With ambiguous visual messages, relevant parts of cards were physically covered. We expected that this would make it more obvious that the speaker's intended meaning was not being fully conveyed. No difference was found between verbal and visual conditions: correct judgements about message ambiguity occured with the same frequency in both.In Experiment 2, children judged in one game whether they had been told enough about the experimenter's chosen card, as in Experiment 1. In a second game, visual information about a card was not conveyed by the experimenter, Rather, the child operated a pointer, set in a disc with windows, beneath which lay cards. The child judged whether the window showed enough for him/her to tell which card the pointer indicated. Again, correct judgments about ambiguity occured with the same frequency in both games.The results implied that children's failure to realise when verbal messages are ambiguous is but one aspect of a more general failure to realise when one has insufficient information at one's disposal to guarantee a correct interpretation of what the world is like.     

Décalage in infants' knowledge about occlusion and containment events: Converging evidence from action tasks

In the present research, 6-month-old infants consistently searched for a tall toy behind a tall as opposed to a short occluder. However, when the same toy was hidden inside a tall or a short container, only older, 7.5-month-old infants searched for the tall toy inside the tall container. These and control results (1) confirm previous violation-of-expectation (VOE) findings of a décalage in infants' reasoning about height information in occlusion and containment events; (2) cast doubt on the suggestion that VOE tasks overestimate infants' cognitive abilities; and (3) support recent proposals that infants use their physical knowledge to guide their actions when task demands do not overwhelm their limited processing resources.     

Décalage in infants' knowledge about occlusion and containment events: converging evidence from action tasks

In the present research, 6-month-old infants consistently searched for a tall toy behind a tall as opposed to a short occluder. However, when the same toy was hidden inside a tall or a short container, only older, 7.5-month-old infants searched for the tall toy inside the tall container. These and control results (1) confirm previous violation-of-expectation (VOE) findings of a décalage in infants' reasoning about height information in occlusion and containment events; (2) cast doubt on the suggestion that VOE tasks overestimate infants' cognitive abilities; and (3) support recent proposals that infants use their physical knowledge to guide their actions when task demands do not overwhelm their limited processing resources.     

Learning by looking: Infants' social looking behavior across the transition from crawling to walking

This study investigated how infants gather information about their environment through looking and how that changes with increases in motor skills. In Experiment 1, 9.5- and 14-month-olds participated in a 10-min free play session with both a stranger and ambiguous toys present. There was a significant developmental progression from passive to active social engagement, as evidenced by younger infants watching others communicate more and older infants making more bids for social interaction. Experiment 2 examined longitudinally the impact of age and walking onset on this progression. The transition to independent walking marked significant changes in how often infants watched others communicate and made active bids for social interaction. Results suggest that infants transition from passive observers as crawlers to active participants in their social environment with the onset of walking.     

The ground is dominant in infants’ perception of relative distance

When making relative distance judgments, adults attend to information provided by the ground surface and generally ignore information provided by ceiling surfaces. In the present study, we asked whether this ground dominance effect is present in infancy. Groups of 5- and 7-month-old infants viewed a display depicting textured ground and ceiling surfaces. Two toys, which were attached to vertical rods, were affixed to the display. The toys/rods were positioned so that one toy was specified as being nearer by the ground surface but farther away by the ceiling surface, while the other toy was specified as being farther away by the ground surface but nearer by the ceiling surface. Under monocular viewing conditions, the infants in both age groups reached preferentially for the toy that was specified as being nearer by the ground surface. This effect was significantly stronger than that observed under binocular viewing conditions. The findings indicate that the infants responded to the distance information provided by the ground surface to a greater extent than to information provided by the ceiling.     

What comes first? How selective attentional processes regulate the activation of a motor routine in a manual search task

An intriguing error has been observed in toddlers presented with a 3-location search task involving invisible displacements of an object, namely, the C-not-B task. In 3 experiments, the authors investigated the dynamics of the attentional focus process that is suspected to be involved in this task. In Experiment 1, 2.5-year-old children were tested on a new adaptation of the C-not-B task in which the opening of the experimenter's hand between cloths provided visual information about the correct localization of the toy. Children still emitted a strong response bias toward the last hiding place. In Experiment 2, 2.5-year-old children were tested on a new version of the task that was designed to investigate the role of the central location in the task. This 2nd experiment demonstrated that changing the hand's movement from A to C to B did not enable children to succeed in the task. In Experiment 3, 2.5-year-old children were tested in a situation that is analogous to the C-not-B with open hands task except for the fact that the experimenter dropped the toy under the 1st cloth in the path. Toddlers succeeded when the toy was hidden at Location A but not when it was hidden at Location B. Data indicate that attentional focus on the experimenter's hand motion is contingent on whether that stimulus is critical to performing the task. We argue that these findings provide a potential mechanism through which motor routines can be regulated in accordance with strategic intentions.     

That’s the way the ball bounces: infants’ and adults’ perception of spatial and temporal contiguity in collisions involving bouncing balls

Three experiments investigated the perception of collisions involving bouncing balls by 7- and 10-month-old infants and adults. In previous research, 10-month-old infants perceived the causality of launching collisions (events in which one object moves along a smooth horizontal trajectory toward a second object, apparently launching it into motion) in relatively simple event contexts. In more complex event contexts, infants failed to discriminate among the events or respond to changes in individual features. Experiments 1 and 2 of the present investigation revealed that 7- and 10-month-old infants attended to spatial and temporal contiguity, but not causality, in collisions involving the movement of bouncing balls. In Experiment 3, both spatiotemporal contiguity and general knowledge about movement trajectories influenced adults’ judgments of causality for these collisions. The present results add to a growing understanding of infants’ event perception as constructive and a function, in part, of the complexity of the event context.     

Seven-month-old infants chunk items in memory

Although working memory has a highly constrained capacity limit of three or four items, both adults and toddlers can increase the total amount of stored information by "chunking" object representations in memory. To examine the developmental origins of chunking, we used a violation-of-expectation procedure to ask whether 7-month-old infants, whose working memory capacity is still maturing, also can chunk items in memory. In Experiment 1, we found that in the absence of chunking cues, infants failed to remember three identical hidden objects. In Experiments 2 and 3, we found that infants successfully remembered three hidden objects when provided with overlapping spatial and featural chunking cues. In Experiment 4, we found that infants did not chunk when provided with either spatial or featural chunking cues alone. Finally, in Experiment 5, we found that infants also failed to chunk when spatial and featural cues specified different chunks (i.e., were pitted against each other). Taken together, these results suggest that chunking is available before working memory capacity has matured but still may undergo important development over the first year of life.