This content will become publicly available on November 5, 2024
Does knowledge of other people's minds grow from concrete experience to abstract concepts? Cognitive scientists have hypothesized that infants’ first‐person experience, acting on their own goals, leads them to understand others’ actions and goals. Indeed, classic developmental research suggests that before infants reach for objects, they do not see others’ reaches as goal‐directed. In five experiments (
In the present experiments, 3‐month‐old prereaching infants learned to attribute either object goals or place goals to other people's reaching actions. Prereaching infants view agents’ actions as goal‐directed, but do not expect these acts to be directed to specific objects, rather than to specific places. Prereaching infants are open‐minded about the specific goal states that reaching actions aim to achieve.
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10472712
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Developmental Science
- ISSN:
- 1363-755X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Highlights Hand preference trajectories reliably predict preschool language above and beyond SES.
Infants with a consistent hand preference for reaching had greater language skills at 5 years.
Infant hand preference explained more variance in language than toddler hand preference.
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