The impact of salient action effects on 6-, 7-, and 11-month-olds’ goal-predictive gaze shifts for a human grasping action
- When infants observe a human grasping action, experience-based accounts predict that all infants familiar with grasping actions should be able to predict the goal regardless of additional agency cues such as an action effect. Cue-based accounts, however, suggest that infants use agency cues to identify and predict action goals when the action or the agent is not familiar. From these accounts, we hypothesized that younger infants would need additional agency cues such as a salient action effect to predict the goal of a human grasping action, whereas older infants should be able to predict the goal regardless of agency cues. In three experiments, we presented 6-, 7-, and 11-month-olds with videos of a manual grasping action presented either with or without an additional salient action effect (Exp. 1 and 2), or we presented 7-month-olds with videos of a mechanical claw performing a grasping action presented with a salient action effect (Exp. 3). The 6-month-olds showed tracking gaze behavior, and the 11-month-olds showed predictive gazeWhen infants observe a human grasping action, experience-based accounts predict that all infants familiar with grasping actions should be able to predict the goal regardless of additional agency cues such as an action effect. Cue-based accounts, however, suggest that infants use agency cues to identify and predict action goals when the action or the agent is not familiar. From these accounts, we hypothesized that younger infants would need additional agency cues such as a salient action effect to predict the goal of a human grasping action, whereas older infants should be able to predict the goal regardless of agency cues. In three experiments, we presented 6-, 7-, and 11-month-olds with videos of a manual grasping action presented either with or without an additional salient action effect (Exp. 1 and 2), or we presented 7-month-olds with videos of a mechanical claw performing a grasping action presented with a salient action effect (Exp. 3). The 6-month-olds showed tracking gaze behavior, and the 11-month-olds showed predictive gaze behavior, regardless of the action effect. However, the 7-month-olds showed predictive gaze behavior in the action-effect condition, but tracking gaze behavior in the no-action-effect condition and in the action-effect condition with a mechanical claw. The results therefore support the idea that salient action effects are especially important for infants' goal predictions from 7 months on, and that this facilitating influence of action effects is selective for the observation of human hands.…
Author details: | Maurits AdamORCiDGND, Birgit ElsnerORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240165 |
ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33007025 |
Title of parent work (English): | PLOS ONE |
Publisher: | Public Library of Science |
Place of publishing: | San Fransisco |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2020/10/02 |
Publication year: | 2020 |
Release date: | 2022/11/11 |
Tag: | attention; eye movements; infants perception; mechanisms; origins |
Volume: | 15 |
Issue: | 10 |
Article number: | e0240165 |
Number of pages: | 18 |
Funding institution: | transnational E-RARE grant `CCMCURE (DFG)European Commission [SFB958]; E-RARE [ERL 138397]; Canadian; Institutes for Health ResearchCanadian Institutes of Health Research; (CIHR) [PJT 153000]; the E-RARE grant `CCMCURE |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Psychologie |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 50 Naturwissenschaften / 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik |
6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit | |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Gold Open-Access |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |