Action experience alters 3-month-old infants' perception of others' actions
Jessica A Sommerville1, Amanda L Woodward, Amy Needham
1Department of Psychology and Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. sommej@u.washington.edu
Abstract:
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.
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