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Pointing as Epistemic Request: 12-month-olds Point to Receive New Information

Ágnes M Kovács1, Tibor Tauzin2, Ernő Téglás1

  • 1Cognitive Development Center, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.

Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies
|November 17, 2015
PubMed

Insights

Infants

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Linguistics

Background:

  • Infants begin pointing around age one.
  • Pointing is thought to share experiences.
  • An alternative view suggests pointing is an epistemic request for information.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if infants' pointing serves as an epistemic request.
  • To determine if infants expect pointing to elicit new information from adults.

Main Methods:

  • 12-month-old infants participated in two experiments.
  • Adults responded to infant pointing with 'informing' or 'sharing' behaviors.
  • Infant pointing frequency was recorded across conditions.

Main Results:

  • Infants pointed more frequently when adults provided new information ('informing').
  • Pointing frequency was lower when adults only shared attention ('sharing').
  • This indicates infants expect pointing to yield information.

Conclusions:

  • Infant pointing may function as an epistemic request for information.
  • Early communicative signals are tuned to facilitate learning.
  • Pointing production is linked to infants' learning from others.

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