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Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
06:07

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

A new look at infant pointing

Michael Tomasello1, Malinda Carpenter, Ulf Liszkowski

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. tomas@eva.mpg.de

Child Development
|May 23, 2007
PubMed

Insights

Infants

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Linguistics

Background:

  • Infant pointing is a crucial prelinguistic communication behavior.
  • Understanding the intentionality behind infant gestures is key to cognitive development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose a new theory of infant pointing based on multiple layers of intentionality.
  • To present evidence supporting a rich interpretation of prelinguistic communication and infant social cognition.

Main Methods:

  • Theoretical analysis of infant pointing behavior.
  • Review of existing empirical evidence on infant communication and social skills.

Main Results:

  • Infant pointing at 12 months involves influencing adult mental states.
  • Pointing relies on uniquely human cooperative skills and shared intentionality.

Conclusions:

  • Prelinguistic communication, specifically infant pointing, is deeply social and intentional.
  • Early linguistic abilities are founded on this sophisticated prelinguistic communication platform.

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