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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 Use Others' Inconsistent Choices to Make Preference Attributions
Youjung Choi1, Rylie Putrich2, Kristy vanMarle3
1School of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences, Southern Illinois University, 1125 Lincoln Drive, Carbondale, Illinois 62901, USA.
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The present study showed that at 8.5 months of age, infants could use an agent's inconsistent choices to make preference attributions. When the agent chose between two toys (toy-A and toy-B) at a ratio of 1 to 4 with the single different choice presented first (hence in the order of ABBBB), infants took her first choice (A) as her preference. When the agent's single different choice was presented last (in the order of AAAAB), however, infants did not attribute a preference to her. These findings are discussed in terms of how infants might have integrated inconsistency and temporal information to draw inferences about the agent's choices, contributing to a better understanding of how infants come to appreciate the probabilistic nature of people's choices and preferences.
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