TY  - JOUR
A1  - Krasotkina, Anna
A1  - Götz, Antonia
A1  - Höhle, Barbara
A1  - Schwarzer, Gudrun
T1  - Perceptual narrowing in face- and speech-perception domains in infancy
BT  - a longitudinal approach
JF  - Infant behavior & development : an international and interdisciplinary journal
N2  - During the first year of life, infants undergo a process known as perceptual narrowing, which reduces their sensitivity to classes of stimuli which the infants do not encounter in their environment. It has been proposed that perceptual narrowing for faces and speech may be driven by shared domain-general processes. To investigate this theory, our study longitudinally tested 50 German Caucasian infants with respect to these domains first at 6 months of age followed by a second testing at 9 months of age. We used an infant-controlled habituation-dishabituation paradigm to test the infants' ability to discriminate among other-race Asian faces and non-native Cantonese speech tones, as well as same-race Caucasian faces as a control. We found that while at 6 months of age infants could discriminate among all stimuli, by 9 months of age they could no longer discriminate among other-race faces or non-native tones. However, infants could discriminate among same-race stimuli both at 6 and at 9 months of age. These results demonstrate that the same infants undergo perceptual narrowing for both other-race faces and non-native speech tones between the ages of 6 and 9 months. This parallel development of perceptual narrowing occurring in both the face and speech perception modalities over the same period of time lends support to the domain-general theory of perceptual narrowing in face and speech perception.
KW  - face perception
KW  - speech perception
KW  - longitudinal
KW  - infant
KW  - perceptual
KW  - narrowing
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101607
SN  - 0163-6383
SN  - 1879-0453
VL  - 64
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Henrichs, Ivanina
A1  - Elsner, Claudia
A1  - Elsner, Birgit
A1  - Gredeback, Gustaf
T1  - Goal salience affects infants' goal-directed gaze shifts
JF  - Frontiers in psychology
N2  - Around their first year of life, infants are able to anticipate the goal of others' ongoing actions. For instance, 12-month-olds anticipate the goal of everyday feeding actions and manual actions such as reaching and grasping. However, little is known whether the salience of the goal influences infants' online assessment of others' actions. The aim of the current eye-tracking study was to elucidate infants' ability to anticipate reaching actions depending on the visual salience of the goal object. In Experiment 1, 12-month-old infants' goal-directed gaze shifts were recorded as they observed a hand reaching for and grasping either a large (high-salience condition) or a small (low-salience condition) goal object. Infants exhibited predictive gaze shifts significantly earlier when the observed hand reached for the large goal object compared to when it reached for the small goal object. In addition, findings revealed rapid learning over the course of trials in the high-salience condition and no learning in the low-salience condition. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the results could not be simply attributed to the different grip aperture of the hand used when reaching for small and large objects. Together, our data indicate that by the end of their first year of life, infants rely on information about the goal salience to make inferences about the action goal.
KW  - anticipation
KW  - eye movement
KW  - salience
KW  - infant
KW  - action understanding
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00391
SN  - 1664-1078
VL  - 3
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Henrichs, Ivanina
A1  - Elsner, Claudia
A1  - Elsner, Birgit
A1  - Wilkinson, Nick
A1  - Gredeback, Gustaf
T1  - Goal certainty modulates infants' goal-directed gaze shifts
JF  - Developmental psychology
N2  - We investigated whether 12-month-old infants rely on information about the certainty of goal selection in order to predict observed reaching actions. Infants' goal-directed gaze shifts were recorded as they observed action sequences in a multiple-goals design. We found that 12-month-old infants exhibited gaze shifts significantly earlier when the observed hand reached for the same goal object in all trials (frequent condition) compared with when the observed hand reached for different goal objects across trials (nonfrequent condition). Infants in the frequent condition were significantly more accurate at predicting the action goal than infants in the nonfrequent condition. In addition, findings revealed rapid learning in the case of certainty and no learning in the case of uncertainty of goal selection over the course of trials. Together, our data indicate that by the end of their first year of life, infants rely on information about the certainty of goal selection to make inferences about others' action goals.
KW  - anticipation
KW  - eye movement
KW  - infant
KW  - direct matching
KW  - statistical learning
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032664
SN  - 0012-1649
SN  - 1939-0599
VL  - 50
IS  - 1
SP  - 100
EP  - 107
PB  - American Psychological Association
CY  - Washington
ER  -