@article{ElsnerJeschonekPauen2013, author = {Elsner, Birgit and Jeschonek, Susanna and Pauen, Sabina}, title = {Event-related potentials for 7-month-olds' processing of animals and furniture items}, series = {Developmental cognitive neuroscience : a journal for cognitive, affective and social developmental neuroscience}, volume = {3}, journal = {Developmental cognitive neuroscience : a journal for cognitive, affective and social developmental neuroscience}, number = {1}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {1878-9293}, doi = {10.1016/j.dcn.2012.09.002}, pages = {53 -- 60}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Event-related potentials (ERPs) to single visual stimuli were recorded in 7-month-old infants. In a three-stimulus oddball paradigm, infants watched one frequently occurring standard stimulus (either an animal or a furniture item) and two infrequently occurring oddball stimuli, presenting one exemplar from the same and one from the different super-ordinate category as compared to the standard stimulus. Additionally, visual attributes of the stimuli were controlled to investigate whether infants focus on category membership or on perceptual similarity when processing the stimuli. Infant ERPs indicated encoding of the standard stimulus and discriminating it from the two oddball stimuli by larger Nc peak amplitude and late-slow-wave activity for the infrequent stimuli. Moreover, larger Nc latency and positive-slow-wave activity indicated increased processing for the different-category as compared to the same-category oddball. Thus, 7-month-olds seem to encode single stimuli not only by surface perceptual features, but they also regard information of category membership, leading to facilitated processing of the oddball that belongs to the same domain as the standard stimulus.}, language = {en} } @article{PfeiferElsner2013, author = {Pfeifer, Caroline and Elsner, Birgit}, title = {Preschoolers' encoding of rational actions - the role of task features and verbal information}, series = {Journal of experimental child psychology}, volume = {116}, journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology}, number = {2}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0022-0965}, doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2012.12.005}, pages = {532 -- 544}, year = {2013}, abstract = {In the current study, we first investigated whether preschoolers imitate selectively across three imitation tasks. Second, we examined whether preschoolers' selective imitation is influenced by differences in the modeled actions and/or by the situational context. Finally, we investigated how verbal cues given by the model affect preschoolers' imitation. Participants (3- to 5-year-olds) watched an adult performing an unusual action in three imitation tasks (touch light, house, and obstacle). In two conditions, the model either was or was not restricted by situational constraints. In addition, the model verbalized either the goal that was to be achieved, the movement, or none of the action components. Preschoolers always acted on the objects without constraints. Results revealed differences in preschoolers' selective imitation across the tasks. In the house task, they showed the selective imitation pattern that has been interpreted as rational, imitating the unusual action more often in the no-constraint condition than in the constraint condition. In contrast, in the touch light task, preschoolers imitated the unusual head touch irrespective of the model's constraints or of the verbal cues that had been presented. Finally, in the obstacle task, children mostly emulated the observed goal irrespective of the presence of the constraint, but they increased their imitation of the unusual action when the movement had been emphasized. Overall, our data suggest that preschoolers adjust their imitative behavior to context-specific information about objects, actions, and their interpretations of the model's intention to teach something.}, language = {en} } @article{ElsnerPfeiferParkeretal.2013, author = {Elsner, Birgit and Pfeifer, Caroline and Parker, Charlene and Hauf, Petra}, title = {Infants' perception of actions and situational constraints - an eye-tracking study}, series = {Journal of experimental child psychology}, volume = {116}, journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology}, number = {2}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0022-0965}, doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2012.11.014}, pages = {428 -- 442}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Rational action understanding requires that infants evaluate the efficiency of a movement in achieving a goal with respect to situational constraints. In contrast, recent accounts have highlighted the impact of perceptual characteristics of the demonstrated movement or constraints to explain infants' behavior in so-called rational imitation tasks. The current study employed eye tracking to investigate how 13- to 15-month-old infants distribute their visual attention to different aspects of an action demonstration. In three tasks (touchlight, house, and obstacle), infants watched videos in which a model performed an unusual action while she was or was not restricted by situational constraints. Infants' overall looking to the demonstration as well as looking to four segments of the video (initial segment, constraint demonstration, action performance, and final segment) and to specific areas (constraint area of interest [AOI] and action AOI) was analyzed. Overall, infants looked longer at the demonstration in the constraint condition compared with the no-constraint condition. The condition differences occurred in the two video segments where the constraint or action was displayed and were especially profound for the constraint AOI. These findings indicate that infants processed the situational constraints. However, the pattern of condition differences varied slightly in the three tasks. In sum, the data imply that infants process perceptual characteristics of the movement or constraints and that low-level perceptual processes interact with higher level cognitive processes in infants' action perception.}, language = {en} } @article{KadukElsnerReid2013, author = {Kaduk, Katharina and Elsner, Birgit and Reid, Vincent M.}, title = {Discrimination of animate and inanimate motion in 9-month-old infants - An ERP study}, series = {Developmental cognitive neuroscience : a journal for cognitive, affective and social developmental neuroscience}, volume = {6}, journal = {Developmental cognitive neuroscience : a journal for cognitive, affective and social developmental neuroscience}, number = {5}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {1878-9293}, doi = {10.1016/j.dcn.2013.05.003}, pages = {14 -- 22}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Simple geometric shapes moving in a self-propelled manner, and violating Newtonian laws of motion by acting against gravitational forces tend to induce a judgement that an object is animate. Objects that change their motion only due to external causes are more likely judged as inanimate. How the developing brain is employed in the perception of animacy in early ontogeny is currently unknown. The aim of this study was to use ERP techniques to determine if the negative central component (Nc), a waveform related to attention allocation, was differentially affected when an infant observed animate or inanimate motion. Short animated movies comprising a marble moving along a marble run either in an animate or an inanimate manner were presented to 15 infants who were 9 months of age. The ERPs were time-locked to a still frame representing animate or inanimate motion that was displayed following each movie. We found that 9-month-olds are able to discriminate between animate and inanimate motion based on motion cues alone and most likely allocate more attentional resources to the inanimate motion. The present data contribute to our understanding of the animate-inanimate distinction and the Nc as a correlate of infant cognitive processing.}, language = {en} }