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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
05:35

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

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Secret agents: inferences about hidden causes by 10- and 12-month-old infants

R Saxe1, J B Tenenbaum, S Carey

  • 1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. saxe@mit.edu

Psychological Science
|November 30, 2005
PubMed

Insights

Preverbal infants understand that human actions, not inanimate objects, cause motion. They infer hidden agents, but not if the object can move on its own.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Infant Psychology
  • Causality Perception

Background:

  • Preverbal infants associate physical contact with object motion.
  • Limited research exists on infants' understanding of causal agents.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate infants' expectations regarding the source of causal power for object motion.
  • To determine if infants infer hidden causal agents based on motion events.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments were conducted with 10- and 12-month-old infants.
  • Infants observed scenarios involving moving inanimate objects and potential causal agents (human hand vs. inanimate object).
  • Behavioral responses were recorded to assess expectations and inferences.

Main Results:

  • Infants expected a human hand, not an inanimate object, to cause an inanimate object's motion.
  • Infants inferred a hidden causal agent even without direct perceptual evidence.
  • This inference was absent if the object demonstrated self-generated motion previously.

Conclusions:

  • Infants possess nuanced expectations about the sources of causality.
  • Early in development, infants attribute agency to humans for initiating object motion.
  • Infants differentiate between externally caused and self-generated motion, adjusting causal inferences accordingly.

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