Comparison of active and purely visual performance in a multiple-string means-end task in infants

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Gaze in Action: Head-mounted Eye Tracking of Children's Dynamic Visual Attention During Naturalistic Behavior
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Gaze in Action: Head-mounted Eye Tracking of Children's Dynamic Visual Attention During Naturalistic Behavior

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Lauriane Rat-Fischer1, J Kevin O'Regan1, Jacqueline Fagard1

  • 1Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, CNRS UMR 8158, Centre Biomédical des Saints-Pères, 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France.

Cognition
|August 1, 2014
PubMed

Insights

Infants’ problem-solving on a multiple-string task depends on inhibitory control and action understanding. Success requires inhibiting immediate actions and anticipating others' actions, supporting the direct matching hypothesis.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

  • Infants master single string-pulling tasks by 12 months.
  • Many 16-month-olds fail multiple-string tasks, indicating a developmental challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

  • Investigate factors influencing infant problem-solving on a multiple-string task.
  • Examine the role of inhibitory control and action anticipation in task success.

Main Methods:

  • Assessed 16-20-month-olds on a multiple-string task, categorizing performance.
  • Compared active task performance with visual anticipation of adult actions.
  • Analyzed inhibitory control of the preferred hand and predictive looking strategies.

Main Results:

  • Infant performance correlated with inhibitory control levels.
  • Only successful action-task performers visually anticipated adult actions.
  • Inhibitory control alone did not fully explain performance differences.

Conclusions:

  • Infant success on the multiple-string task involves more than just inhibitory control.
  • Findings support the direct matching hypothesis: performing actions precedes anticipating them.
  • Action understanding is crucial for infants to predict others' behaviors.

Keywords:
Eye movementsInfantsInhibitory controlMeans-endString task

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