Better Together: 14-Month-Old Infants Expect Agents to Cooperate.
Liza Vizmathy1, Katarina Begus2, Gunther Knoblich1
1Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Vienna, Austria.
Open Mind : Discoveries in Cognitive Science
|February 29, 2024
Summary
Even at 14 months, infants expect agents to cooperate, prioritizing joint goals over individual effort. This suggests an early understanding of cooperation
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Evolutionary Anthropology
Background:
- Human cooperation is a defining trait, yet its developmental origins are not fully understood.
- Cognitive and motivational factors likely underpin cooperative behaviors from an early age.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate early indicators of cooperative abilities in human infants.
- To determine if 14-month-old infants anticipate agents preferring cooperative over individual goal achievement.
Main Methods:
- Infants (14 months) observed videos of agents choosing between actions with identical rewards but varying individual costs.
- Three experimental groups were presented with different action-choice scenarios.
Main Results:
- Infants expected agents to make instrumentally rational choices, preferring less costly individual actions.
- When cooperation was an option, infants expected agents to choose it over individual action, despite higher effort.
- No preference for less costly options was observed when both choices involved cooperation.
Conclusions:
- Results indicate an ontogenetically early expectation of cooperation in human infants.
- Findings suggest infants possess nascent representations of cooperative actions and their utility.
- Raises questions about the fundamental nature of infant cooperation understanding.
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