Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 28, 2025

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task
Published on: June 1, 2015
Object play in the everyday home environment generates rich opportunities for infant learning
Mackenzie S Swirbul1, Orit Herzberg2, Catherine S Tamis-LeMonda1
1Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, USA.
Abstract:
Infants everywhere engage with objects throughout the day, even if the objects of play differ across cultures. Indeed, object play is a universal context for learning. Yet, the characteristics of object play at home remain largely unexamined, especially in infants from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Through frame-by-frame video coding, we documented Hispanic infants' object interactions based on 1-2 h of naturalistic home observations. Infants interacted with a wide variety of toys and household objects in brief bouts that summed to ~60% of their time. As infants transition among objects, they serendipitously generate opportunities for learning that support development across domains.
Related Concept Videos
Observational Learning
Social Foundations of Self I: Play and Game
The Nativist Approach
Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development
Exploration...
Introduction to Learning
In contrast to learned behaviors, unlearned behaviors such as crying, sexual...
Socioemotional Development during Infancy
Primary Temperament Types

