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Infants’ interpretation of information-seeking actions
Title / Series / Name
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Publication Volume
43
Publication Issue
Pages
Editors
Keywords
Action understanding
Information-seeking
Theory of mind
Cognitive development
Information-seeking
Theory of mind
Cognitive development
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/14119
Abstract
Although infants can frequently observe others gathering information, it is an open question whether and how they make sense of such activities since the mental causes and intended effects of these are hidden and underdetermined by the available evidence. We tested the hypothesis that infants possess a naive theory that leads them to grasp the purpose of information-gathering actions when they serve as sub-goals of higher-order instrumental goals. We presented 14-month-old infants with actions that were inefficient with respect to the agent’s instrumental goal but could or could not be justified as information-seeking behavior via this theory. We expected longer looks in the condition where the detour could not be justified and the results were in line with our predictions. While this evidence is compatible with our hypothesis, further studies are in progress to rule out alternative interpretations of our findings.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2021