title: Goal attribution to schematic animals: do 6-month-olds perceive biological motion as animate?
abstract: Infants are sensitive to biological motion, but do they recognize it as animate? As a first step towards answering this question, two experiments investigated whether 6-month-olds selectively attribute goals to shapes moving like animals. We habituated infants to a square moving towards one of two targets. When target locations were switched, infants reacted more to movement towards a new goal than a new location - but only if the square moved non-rigidly and rhythmically, in a schematic version of bio-mechanical movement older observers describe as animal-like (Michotte, 1963). Goal attribution was specific to schematic animal motion: It did not occur if the square moved rigidly with the same rhythm as the animate stimulus, or if the square had the same amount of non-rigid deformation, but in an inanimate configuration. The data would seem to show that perception of schematic animal motion is linked to a system for psychological reasoning from infancy. This in turn suggests that 6-month-olds may already interpret biological motion as animate.
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology & Language Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. a.schlottmann@ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schlottmann
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ray
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology