title: Twelve-month-olds' comprehension and production of pointing.
abstract: This study explored whether infants aged 12 months already recognize the communicative function of pointing gestures. Infants participated in a task requiring them to comprehend an adult's informative pointing gesture to the location of a hidden toy. They mostly succeeded in this task, which required them to infer that the adult was attempting to direct their attention to a location for a reason - because she wanted them to know that a toy was hidden there. Many of the infants also reversed roles and produced appropriate pointing gestures for the adult in this same game, and indeed there was a correlation such that comprehenders were for the most part producers. These findings indicate that by 12 months of age infants are beginning to show a bidirectional understanding of communicative pointing.
authors.affiliation: Courant Research Centre 'Evolution of Social Behaviour', University of Göttingen, Germany. tbehne@uni-goettingen.de
authors.forename: Tanya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Behne
authors.forename: Ulf
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Liszkowski
authors.forename: Malinda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carpenter
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomasello
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis