title: Belief-based action prediction in preverbal infants.
abstract: Successful mindreading entails both the ability to think about what others know or believe, and to use this knowledge to generate predictions about how mental states will influence behavior. While previous studies have demonstrated that young infants are sensitive to others' mental states, there continues to be much debate concerning how to characterize early theory of mind abilities. In the current study, we asked whether 6-month-old infants appreciate the causal role that beliefs play in action. Specifically, we tested whether infants generate action predictions that are appropriate given an agent's current belief. We exploited a novel, neural indication of action prediction: motor cortex activation as measured by sensorimotor alpha suppression, to ask whether infants would generate differential predictions depending on an agent's belief. After first verifying our paradigm and measure with a group of adult participants, we found that when an agent had a false belief that a ball was in the box, motor activity indicated that infants predicted she would reach for the box, but when the agent had a false belief that a ball was not in the box, infants did not predict that she would act. In both cases, infants based their predictions on what the agent, rather than the infant, believed to be the case, suggesting that by 6months of age, infants can exploit their sensitivity to other minds for action prediction.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK. Electronic address: v.southgate@bbk.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Southgate
authors.forename: Angelina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vernetti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D003469:Culture; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D053483:Eye Movement Measurements; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: EEG; False belief; Infants; Sensorimotor alpha suppression; Theory of mind