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Updated: Aug 19, 2026
Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
10-Month-Old Infants Are Sensitive to the Time Course of Perceived Actions: Eye-Tracking and EEG Evidence
Cathleen Bache1, Anne Springer2,3, Hannes Noack4
1Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human DevelopmentBerlin, Germany.
Insights
Ten-month-old infants can detect temporal shifts in observed movements, indicating an early ability to internally represent movement timing. This supports real-time simulation of observed actions within an infant's motor repertoire.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Infant Motor Development
Background:
- Infants track moving objects, even when occluded, enabling event prediction.
- The internal representation of movement timing in infants remains largely unexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if 10-month-old infants internally represent the time course of observed movements.
- To determine if infants can detect temporal discrepancies in observed actions.
Main Methods:
- Simultaneous eye-tracking and electroencephalography (EEG) were used.
- 10-month-old infants observed videos of a crawling baby with occluded movements.
- Movement continuations were either temporally continuous, delayed, or forwarded by 500 ms.
Main Results:
- Infant eye movements indicated sensitivity to temporal shifts in movement continuation.
- Electroencephalography (EEG) revealed differences in sensorimotor processing between continuous and non-continuous movements.
- Results suggest infants are sensitive to the timing of observed actions.
Conclusions:
- 10-month-old infants possess an early sensitivity to the temporal dynamics of observed movements.
- This sensitivity supports the internal real-time simulation of actions within an infant's motor capabilities.
- Findings suggest infants are prepared to internally represent the time course of observed actions.
Abstract:
Research has shown that infants are able to track a moving target efficiently - even if it is transiently occluded from sight. This basic ability allows prediction of when and where events happen in everyday life. Yet, it is unclear whether, and how, infants internally represent the time course of ongoing movements to derive predictions. In this study, 10-month-old crawlers observed the video of a same-aged crawling baby that was transiently occluded and reappeared in either a temporally continuous or non-continuous manner (i.e., delayed by 500 ms vs. forwarded by 500 ms relative to the real-time movement). Eye movement and rhythmic neural brain activity (EEG) were measured simultaneously. Eye movement analyses showed that infants were sensitive to slight temporal shifts in movement continuation after occlusion. Furthermore, brain activity associated with sensorimotor processing differed between observation of continuous and non-continuous movements. Early sensitivity to an action's timing may hence be explained within the internal real-time simulation account of action observation. Overall, the results support the hypothesis that 10-month-old infants are well prepared for internal representation of the time course of observed movements that are within the infants' current motor repertoire.
