Pointing as epistemic request: 12-month-olds point to receive new information
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Type
Journal articleTitle / Series / Name
InfancyPublication Volume
19Publication Issue
6Date
2014
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Show full item recordAbstract
Infants start pointing systematically to objects or events around their first birthday. It has been proposed that infants point to an event in order to share their appreciation of it with others. In the current study, we tested another hypothesis, according to which infants' pointing could also serve as an epistemic request directed to the adult. Thus, infants' motivation for pointing could include the expectation that adults would provide new information about the referent. In two experiments, an adult reacted to 12-month-olds’ pointing gestures by exhibiting 'informing' or 'sharing' behavior. In response, infants pointed more frequently across trials in the informing than in the sharing condition. This suggests that the feedback that contained new information matched infants' expectations more than mere attention sharing. Such a result is consistent with the idea that not just the comprehension but also the production of early communicative signals is tuned to assist infants' learning from others.Publisher link
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/infa.12060/abstractidentifiers
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/infa.12060ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/infa.12060
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