Action experience alters 3-month-old infants' perception of others' actions.
An intervention facilitated 3-month-old infants' apprehension of objects either prior to (reach first), or after (watch first) viewing another person grasp similar objects in a visual habituation procedure. Action experience facilitated action perception: reach-first infants focused on the relation between the actor and her goal, but watch-first infants did not. Infants' sensitivity to the actor's goal was correlated with their engagement in object-directed contact with the toys. These findings indicate that infants can rapidly form goal-based action representations and suggest a developmental link between infants' goal directed actions and their ability to detect goals in the actions of others.
Sommerville
Jessica A
JA
Department of Psychology and Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. sommej@u.washington.edu
Woodward
Amanda L
AL
Needham
Amy
A
D001288:Attention; D001364:Awareness; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D018737:Hand Strength; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D018187:Personal Construct Theory; D002666:Psychology, Child; D011597:Psychomotor Performance