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Developmental changes in the discrimination of dynamic human actions in infancy
Jeff Loucks1, Jessica A Sommerville
1Jeff Loucks, Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Box 351525, Seattle, WA 98195-1525, USA. jloucks@uw.edu
Developmental Science
|January 19, 2012
Summary
Infants
Area of Science:
- Cognitive science
- Developmental psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Adults focus on action features, not trajectory, when observing actions.
- Early action perception development is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate if infant action perception mirrors adult biases.
- Examine developmental changes in infant action discrimination.
Main Methods:
- Habituation paradigm with 4- and 10-month-old infants.
- Assessed discrimination of featural, configural, and temporal action information.
Main Results:
- Younger infants discriminated all action information types.
- Older infants discriminated only featural action information.
- Suggests a developmental shift in action perception.
Conclusions:
- Infant action perception shows developmental changes.
- Action perception may undergo perceptual narrowing in infancy.
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