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Related Experiment Videos

Reference and attitude in infant pointing.

Ulf Liszkowski1, Malinda Carpenter, Michael Tomasello

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Leipzig, Germany. liszkowski@eva.mpg.de

Journal of Child Language
|March 8, 2007
PubMed
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Twelve-month-old infants use declarative pointing to share attention and attitude. Infants actively repair communication when attention is wrong, but disengage if the adult lacks enthusiasm for the referent.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Infant Communication
  • Pragmatics

Background:

  • Declarative pointing is a key preverbal communicative act.
  • Understanding infant communicative intent is crucial for developmental research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the communicative functions of infant declarative pointing.
  • To examine how infants' message repair strategies are influenced by adult responses.

Main Methods:

  • Two experiments were conducted with 106 preverbal infants aged 12 months.
  • Researchers analyzed infant pointing behavior in response to experimenter's attention and attitude.

Main Results:

  • Infants repaired communication when the experimenter attended to the wrong referent.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Infants disengaged from pointing when the experimenter showed disinterest.
  • Infants showed greatest satisfaction when the experimenter shared interest in the referent.

    • Conclusions:

    • By 12 months, infant declarative pointing is a sophisticated communicative act.
    • Infants aim to share both referential attention and affective attitude.
    • This indicates advanced pragmatic understanding in preverbal infants.