Brief articleCan infants attribute to an agent a disposition to perform a particular action?
Section snippets
The present research
The infants first received three familiarization trials in which they saw an actor grasp an object on an apparatus floor and repeatedly slide it forward and backward (see Fig. 1). Different objects—a toy fish, a box, and a baby shoe—were used in the three trials. Next, the infants received a static pretest display trial in which they saw two identical toy trucks resting side by side on the apparatus floor (see Fig. 2). The truck on the right (from the infants' perspective) stood inside a short
Participants
Participants were 30 healthy term infants, 15 male and 15 female (range=13 months, 1 day to 14 months, 14 days, M=13 months, 18 days). Another 14 infants were eliminated because they were inattentive (4), distracted (4), or active (2), looked the maximum amount of time allowed on 3 or more of the 5 trials they received (3), or looked over 3 SD above the mean of their condition in the test trial (1). Fifteen infants were randomly assigned to each action condition; within each condition, 8
Results
Fig. 4 shows the infants' mean looking times during the familiarization, display, and test trials. The infants' looking times during the three familiarization trials were averaged and analyzed by means of a 2×2 analysis of variance with action condition (sliding or lifting) and event condition (short- or long-frame) as between-subjects factors. No effect was significant, all Fs(1, 26)<1.89, P>.15, suggesting that the infants in the four experimental groups tended to look equally during the
Discussion
When the actor repeatedly slid the various objects before her during familiarization, the infants took her actions to reveal a particular disposition, namely, an inclination to slide objects. During test, the infants (1) expected the actor's disposition to again guide her actions; (2) realized that the truck inside the long frame was “slideable” but that the truck inside the short frame was not; and hence (3) were surprised when the actor reached for the truck inside the short frame.
When the
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by grants from NICHD to Renée Baillargeon (HD 21104) and Cynthia Fisher (HD 44458). We thank Gergely Csibra and György Gergely for helpful comments; the staff of the University of Illinois Infant Cognition Laboratory for their help with the data collection; and the parents and infants who kindly participated in the research.
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2020, CognitionCitation Excerpt :Let us take some of the most famous experimental findings about the development of social cognition. 13.5 month old infants who have watched an actor slide toy trucks on the floor look at an actor who grasps a toy truck that is enclosed in a small frame longer than they look at an actor who grasps an identical toy truck that is not enclosed (and is therefore free to slide) (Song et al., 2005). The authors conclude that 13.5 year olds attribute dispositions to act.
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