@article{AdamElsner2018, author = {Adam, Maurits and Elsner, Birgit}, title = {Action effects foster 11-month-olds' prediction of action goals for a non-human agent}, series = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {53}, journal = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {New York}, issn = {0163-6383}, doi = {10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.09.002}, pages = {49 -- 55}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Action effects have been stated to be important for infants' processing of goal-directed actions. In this study, 11-month-olds showed equally fast predictive gaze shifts to a claw's action goal when the grasping action was presented either with three agency cues (self-propelled movement, equifinality of goal achievement and a salient action effect) or with only a salient action effect, but infants showed tracking gaze when the claw showed only self-propelled movement and equifinality of goal achievement. The results suggest that action effects, compared to purely kinematic cues, seem to be especially important for infants' online processing of goal-directed actions.}, language = {en} } @article{AdamReitenbachPapenmeieretal.2016, author = {Adam, Maurits and Reitenbach, Ivanina and Papenmeier, Frank and Gredeb{\"a}ck, Gustaf and Elsner, Claudia and Elsner, Birgit}, title = {actions, but not for mechanical claws}, series = {Meteoritics \& planetary science : journal of the Meteoritical Society}, volume = {44}, journal = {Meteoritics \& planetary science : journal of the Meteoritical Society}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {New York}, issn = {0163-6383}, doi = {10.1016/j.infbeh.2016.05.001}, pages = {29 -- 37}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Previous research indicates that infants' prediction of the goals of observed actions is influenced by own experience with the type of agent performing the action (i.e., human hand vs. non-human agent) as well as by action-relevant features of goal objects (e.g., object size). The present study investigated the combined effects of these factors on 12-month-olds' action prediction. Infants' (N = 49) goal-directed gaze shifts were recorded as they observed 14 trials in which either a human hand or a mechanical claw reached for a small goal area (low-saliency goal) or a large goal area (high-saliency goal). Only infants who had observed the human hand reaching for a high-saliency goal fixated the goal object ahead of time, and they rapidly learned to predict the action goal across trials. By contrast, infants in all other conditions did not track the observed action in a predictive manner, and their gaze shifts to the action goal did not change systematically across trials. Thus, high-saliency goals seem to boost infants' predictive gaze shifts during the observation of human manual actions, but not of actions performed by a mechanical device. This supports the assumption that infants' action predictions are based on interactive effects of action-relevant object features (e.g., size) and own action experience.}, language = {en} } @article{GumbschAdamElsneretal.2021, author = {Gumbsch, Christian and Adam, Maurits and Elsner, Birgit and Butz, Martin V.}, title = {Emergent goal-anticipatory gaze in infants via event-predictive learning and inference}, series = {Cognitive science}, volume = {45}, journal = {Cognitive science}, number = {8}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Malden, Mass.}, issn = {1551-6709}, doi = {10.1111/cogs.13016}, pages = {26}, year = {2021}, abstract = {From about 7 months of age onward, infants start to reliably fixate the goal of an observed action, such as a grasp, before the action is complete. The available research has identified a variety of factors that influence such goal-anticipatory gaze shifts, including the experience with the shown action events and familiarity with the observed agents. However, the underlying cognitive processes are still heavily debated. We propose that our minds (i) tend to structure sensorimotor dynamics into probabilistic, generative event-predictive, and event boundary predictive models, and, meanwhile, (ii) choose actions with the objective to minimize predicted uncertainty. We implement this proposition by means of event-predictive learning and active inference. The implemented learning mechanism induces an inductive, event-predictive bias, thus developing schematic encodings of experienced events and event boundaries. The implemented active inference principle chooses actions by aiming at minimizing expected future uncertainty. We train our system on multiple object-manipulation events. As a result, the generation of goal-anticipatory gaze shifts emerges while learning about object manipulations: the model starts fixating the inferred goal already at the start of an observed event after having sampled some experience with possible events and when a familiar agent (i.e., a hand) is involved. Meanwhile, the model keeps reactively tracking an unfamiliar agent (i.e., a mechanical claw) that is performing the same movement. We qualitatively compare these modeling results to behavioral data of infants and conclude that event-predictive learning combined with active inference may be critical for eliciting goal-anticipatory gaze behavior in infants.}, language = {en} } @article{PatzwaldCurleyHaufetal.2018, author = {Patzwald, Christiane and Curley, Charlotte A. and Hauf, Petra and Elsner, Birgit}, title = {Differential effects of others' emotional cues on 18-month-olds' preferential reproduction of observed actions}, series = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {51}, journal = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {New York}, issn = {0163-6383}, doi = {10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.04.002}, pages = {60 -- 70}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Infants use others' emotional signals to regulate their own object-directed behavior and action reproduction, and they typically produce more actions after having observed positive as compared to negative emotional cues. This study explored infants' understanding of the referential specificity of others' emotional cues when being confronted with two actions that are accompanied by different emotional displays. Selective action reproduction was measured after 18-month-olds (N = 42) had observed two actions directed at the same object, one of which was modeled with a positive emotional expression and the other with a negative emotional expression. Across four trials with different objects, infants' first actions matched the positively-emoted actions more often than the negatively-emoted actions. In comparison with baseline-level, infants' initial performance changed only for the positively-emoted actions, in that it increased during test. Latencies to first object-touch during test did not differ when infants reproduced the positively- or negatively-emoted actions, respectively, indicating that infants related the cues to the respective actions rather than to the object. During demonstration, infants looked relatively longer at the object than at the model's face, with no difference in positive or negative displays. Infants during their second year of life thus capture the action-related referential specificity of others' emotional cues and seem to follow positive signals more readily when actively selecting which of two actions to reproduce preferentially.}, language = {en} } @article{PatzwaldElsner2019, author = {Patzwald, Christiane and Elsner, Birgit}, title = {Do as I say - or as I do?!}, series = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {55}, journal = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {New York}, issn = {0163-6383}, doi = {10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.03.004}, pages = {46 -- 57}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Infants use behavioral and verbal cues to infer another person's action intention. However, it is still unclear how infants integrate these often co-occurring cues depending on the cues' coherence (i.e., the degree to which the cues provide coherent information about another's intention). This study investigated how 18- and 24-month-olds' (N = 88 per age group) action selection was influenced by varying the coherence of a model's verbal and behavioral cues. Using a between-subjects design, infants received six trials with different stimulus objects. In the conditions Congruent, Incongruent, and Failed-attempt, the model uttered a telic verb particle that was followed by a matching or contradicting goal-directed action demonstration, or by a non goal-directed slipping motion, respectively. In the condition Pseudo-word, a nonsense word was combined with a goal-directed action demonstration. Infants' action selection indicated an adherence to the verbal cue in Congruent, Incongruent, and Failed-attempt, and this was stronger in 24- than 18-month-olds. Additionally, in Incongruent and Failed-attempt, patterns of cue integration across the six trials varied in the two age groups. Regarding the behavioral cue, infants in Congruent and Pseudo-word preferentially followed this cue in both age groups, which also suggested a rather unspecific effect of the verbal cue in Congruent. Relatively longer first action-latencies in Incongruent and Failed-attempt implied that these types of coherence elicited higher cognitive demands than in Congruent and Pseudo-word. Results are discussed in light of infants' flexibility in using social cues, depending on the cue's coherence and on age-related social-cognitive differences.}, language = {en} } @article{RenHoehle2022, author = {Ren, Jie and H{\"o}hle, Barbara}, title = {The interplay between language acquisition and cognitive development}, series = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {67}, journal = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, publisher = {Elsevier Science}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0163-6383}, doi = {10.1016/j.infbeh.2022.101718}, pages = {3}, year = {2022}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schlegelmilch2021, author = {Schlegelmilch, Karola}, title = {Grass or gravel? Influences on the visual categorization of naturalistic structures in infancy and early childhood}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-52637}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-526370}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xiv, 218}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Detecting and categorizing particular entities in the environment are important visual tasks that humans have had to solve at various points in our evolutionary time. The question arises whether characteristics of entities that were of ecological significance for humans play a particular role during the development of visual categorization. The current project addressed this question by investigating the effects of developing visual abilities, visual properties and ecological significance on categorization early in life. Our stimuli were monochromatic photographs of structure-like assemblies and surfaces taken from three categories: vegetation, non-living natural elements, and artifacts. A set of computational and rated visual properties were assessed for these stimuli. Three empirical studies applied coherent research concepts and methods in young children and adults, comprising (a) two card-sorting tasks with preschool children (age: 4.1-6.1 years) and adults (age: 18-50 years) which assessed classification and similarity judgments, (b) a gaze contingent eye-tracking search task which investigated the impact of visual properties and category membership on 8-month-olds' ability to segregate visual structure. Because eye-tracking with infants still provides challenges, a methodological study (c) assessed the effect of infant eye-tracking procedures on data quality with 8- to 12-month-old infants and adults. In the categorization tasks we found that category membership and visual properties impacted the performance of all participant groups. Sensitivity to the respective categories varied between tasks and over the age groups. For example, artifact images hindered infants' visual search but were classified best by adults, whereas sensitivity to vegetation was highest during similarity judgments. Overall, preschool children relied less on visual properties than adults, but some properties (e.g., rated depth, shading) were drawn upon similarly strong. In children and infants, depth predicted task performance stronger than shape-related properties. Moreover, children and infants were sensitive to variations in the complexity of low-level visual statistics. These results suggest that classification of visual structures, and attention to particular visual properties is affected by the functional or ecological significance these categories and properties may have for each of the respective age groups. Based on this, the project highlights the importance of further developmental research on visual categorization with naturalistic, structure-like stimuli. As intended with the current work, this would allow important links between developmental and adult research.}, language = {en} } @article{SchmidBlomeyerBuchmannetal.2011, author = {Schmid, Brigitte and Blomeyer, Dorothea and Buchmann, Arlette F. and Trautmann-Villalba, Patricia and Zimmermann, Ulrich S. and Schmidt, Martin H. and Esser, G{\"u}nter and Banaschewski, Tobias and Laucht, Manfred}, title = {Quality of early mother-child interaction associated with depressive psychopathology in the offspring - a prospective study from infancy to adulthood}, series = {Journal of psychiatric research}, volume = {45}, journal = {Journal of psychiatric research}, number = {10}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0022-3956}, doi = {10.1016/j.jpsychires.2011.05.010}, pages = {1387 -- 1394}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Evidence from animal research has revealed that less maternal care results in disturbed emotionality in the offspring. In the present study, the long-term impact of maternal responsiveness and stimulation during early mother child interaction on depressive psychopathology was examined until adulthood. Data are from an epidemiological cohort study of the long-term outcome of early risk factors assessed at birth. At age 3 months, mothers and infants were videotaped during a nursing and playing situation. Maternal responsiveness and stimulation as well as infant responsiveness were evaluated by trained raters. At age 19 years, 314 participants (145 males, 169 females) were characterized on measures of depression through interview and questionnaire. In addition, measures of depression and anxiety were available from assessments in childhood. Results indicated that less maternal stimulation during early interaction was associated with a higher risk of depression in the offspring until the age of 19 years. In addition, children of less stimulating mothers showed more depressive symptoms at age 19 years and displayed more anxiety and depressive symptoms between the ages of 4.5 and 15 years. In contrast, maternal responsiveness was unrelated to children's outcome. In accordance with findings from animal research, the present study provides first longitudinal evidence in humans of a continuous and long-term influence of early maternal interaction behavior on the offspring's psychological adjustment until adulthood. The results suggest that the amount of maternally initiated contact behavior in a very early developmental stage may be crucial for children's mental health, regardless of child and maternal responsiveness.}, language = {en} } @article{SchoenebeckElsner2019, author = {Sch{\"o}nebeck, Maria and Elsner, Birgit}, title = {ERPs reveal perceptual and conceptual processing in 14-month-olds' observation of complete and incomplete action end-states}, series = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, volume = {126}, journal = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0028-3932}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.026}, pages = {102 -- 112}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Infants in the second year of life not only detect the visible goals or end-states of other people's action, but they also seem to be able to infer others' underlying intentions. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the biological basis of infants' processing of others' goal-directed actions, with special regard to the involvement of bottom-up perceptual and top-down conceptual processes. In an adaptation of the behavioral re-enactment procedure, 14-month-olds were first familiarized with either full demonstrations (FD), failed attempts (FA), or arbitrary (AA) object-directed actions. Next, ERPs were measured while all infants saw the same two pictures of the end-states of the full demonstration (complete end-state) and the failed attempt (incomplete end-state). In the time-windows related to perceptual processing (100-200 ms after stimulus onset) and to conceptual processing (300-700 ms), ERP negativity over frontal and central regions was higher for the complete than for the incomplete end-state in the FD and FA conditions. When comparing the FA and AA conditions, this pattern of results occurred only for the conceptual time domain. Moreover, beginning slow-wave activity (700-1000 ms) differed for the end-state pictures in the three conditions, suggesting differential encoding demands. Together, the electrophysiological data indicate that infants in the second year of life use bottom-up perceptual as well as top-down conceptual processing to give meaning to others' goal-directed actions.}, language = {en} }