Self-directed action affects planning in tool-use tasks with toddlers
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Updated: Jun 26, 2026
11:18
Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task
Published on: June 1, 2015
Laura J Claxton1, Michael E McCarty, Rachel Keen
1Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2046, USA. ljclaxton@purdue.edu
Infant Behavior & Development
|February 3, 2009
Abstract:
Toddlers grasp a tool more effectively when it is self-directed (e.g., spoon) than other-directed (e.g., hammer), possibly because the consequences of self-directed actions are more obvious. When the negative consequences of an inefficient grip were made equally salient, the self-directed versus other-directed differences remained.
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