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Updated: Nov 22, 2025

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Infants' Ability to Distinguish Between Intentional and Accidental Actions and Its Relation to Internal State
Kara M Olineck1, Diane Poulin-Dubois1
1Centre for Research in Human Development Concordia University Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Abstract:
The experiment reported here investigated infants' concept of intention, as well as the relation among intention understanding, general productive vocabulary, and internal state language production during the 2nd year. Results from an imitation task indicated that 18-month-olds are better able to differentiate between intentional and accidental actions than 14-month-olds. Although there was no relation between infants' performance on the intention task and their general productive vocabulary, internal state language production at 30 months was predicted by infants' ability to differentiate between intentional and accidental actions about a year earlier. These findings shed light on the developmental progression of infants' concept of intention, as well as on the continuity between infants' understanding of intentional action and their ability to use internal state words.
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