Infants' ability to connect gaze and emotional expression to intentional action

Phillips, Ann; Wellman, Henry M.; Spelke, Elizabeth S.

doi:10.1016/s0010-0277(02)00073-2

Cited by 312 publications

(242 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

225

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Infants represent actions not as purely physical motions through space but rather as directed at objects or states of affairs (Baldwin et al 2001;Csibra et al 2003;Gergely et al 1995;Moore 1999;Woodward 1998;Phillips et al 2002). To illustrate, in one study (Woodward 1998), 6-month-old infants viewed a person reaching for and grasping an object.…”

Section: What Infants Know About Intentional Action and How They Mighmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

2004

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Theories of children's developing understanding of mind tend to emphasize either individualistic processes of theory formation, maturation, or introspection, or the process of enculturation. However, such theories must be able to account for the accumulating evidence of the role of social interaction in the development of social understanding. We propose an alternative account, according to which the development of children's social understanding occurs within triadic interaction involving the child's experience of the world as well as communicative interaction with others about their experience and beliefs (Chapman 1991;. It is through such triadic interaction that children gradually construct knowledge of the world as well as knowledge of other people. We contend that the extent and nature of the social interaction children experience will influence the development of children's social understanding. Increased opportunity to engage in cooperative social interaction and exposure to talk about mental states should facilitate the development of social understanding. We review evidence suggesting that children's understanding of mind develops gradually in the context of social interaction. Therefore, we need a theory of development in this area that accords a fundamental role to social interaction, yet does not assume that children simply adopt socially available knowledge but rather that children construct an understanding of mind within social interaction.Keywords: language; Piaget; social interaction; theories of mind; Vygotsky; Wittgenstein et al. 1998;Symons & Clark 2000), mothers' education (Cutting & Dunn 1999), and socioeconomic circumstances (Holmes et al. 1996).Furthermore, a number of studies have found correlations between language and social understanding (e.g., Cutting & Dunn 1999; de Villers 2000; Happé 1995;Jenkins & Astington 1996). In longitudinal studies, forms of family talk about mental states have been found to be related to later success on false belief tests (e.g., Brown et al. 1996;Dunn et al. 1991a;Ruffman et al. 2002). In addition, mothers who think of their children in mentalistic terms ("mindmindedness"), and therefore, presumably talk to their children about the psychological world, have children who are more advanced in understanding beliefs than are other children (Meins & Fernyhough 1999;Meins et al. 1998). Similar correlations between family interaction and the development of children's understanding of emotions have also been reported (e.g., Dunn et al. 1991b;Hooven et al. 1995;Kuebli et al. 1995;Steele et al. 1999). In a longitudinal study, Astington and Jenkins (1999) found that earlier language abilities predict later false belief performance but earlier false belief competence does not predict later language abilities, supporting the conclusion that language is important in social cognitive development.Another source of evidence that social interaction is important for the development of a mentalistic understanding comes from research with deaf children. A number o...

show abstract

Section: What Infants Know About Intentional Action and How They Mighmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

2004

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…By the end of their first year, infants selectively encode human behaviors such as grasping (Woodward, 1998), pointing (Woodward & Guajardo, 2002, looking (Johnson, Luo, & Ok, in press;Phillips, Wellman, & Spelke, 2002;Woodward, 2003), and emoting Repacholi, 1998) relative to possible targets in the world. Where and how they draw the line between intentional actors like people and non-intentional objects like rocks is debated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actors and actions: The role of agent behavior in infants’ attribution of goals

Johnson

Shimizu

2007

Cognitive Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Twelve-month-old infants attribute goals to both familiar, human agents and unfamiliar, non-human agents. They also attribute goal-directedness to both familiar actions and unfamiliar ones. Four conditions examined information 12-month-olds use to determine which actions of an unfamiliar agent are goal-directed. Infants who witnessed the agent interact contingently with a human confederate encoded the agent's actions as goal-directed; infants who saw a human confederate model an intentional stance toward the agent without the agent's participation, did not. Infants who witnessed the agent align itself with one of two potential targets before approaching that target encoded the approach as goal-directed; infants who did not observe the self-alignment did not encode the approach as goal-directed. A possible common underpinning of these two seemingly independent sources of information is discussed.Research over the past decade has shown that infants construe people's behavior as directed at the world. By the end of their first year, infants selectively encode human behaviors such as grasping (Woodward, 1998), pointing (Woodward & Guajardo, 2002, looking (Johnson, Luo, & Ok, in press;Phillips, Wellman, & Spelke, 2002;Woodward, 2003), and emoting Repacholi, 1998) relative to possible targets in the world. Where and how they draw the line between intentional actors like people and non-intentional objects like rocks is debated.Some have proposed that infants attribute intentionality quite broadly, based on mechanisms designed to detect any goal-directed action, regardless of the identity of the actor (e.g., Baron-

show abstract

“…Similarly, a sensitivity to others' facial expressions is a necessary precursor to recognizing the meaning behind others' emotions and predicting how people will behave in the future (Walker-Andrews, 1997). Interestingly, by the end of the first year, infants categorize various static expressions based on their underlying meaning rather than perceptual similarity (i.e., Ludemann, 1991;Nelson, 1987), and to use these expressions to interpret others' future actions (Phillips, Wellman, & Spelke, 2002;Poulin-Dubois, 1999) and to guide their own behavior (Campos & Sternberg, 1981;Moses, Baldwin, Rosicky, & Tidball, 2001;Sorce, Emde, Campos, & Klinnert, 1985).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity to the context of facial expression in the still face at 3-, 6-, and 9-months of age

Striano¹,

Liszkowski²

2005

Infant Behavior and Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Thirty-eight 3-, 6-, and 9-month-old infants interacted in a face to face situation with a female stranger who disrupted the on-going interaction with 30 s Happy and Neutral still face episodes. Three-and 6-month-olds manifested a robust still face response for gazing and smiling. For smiling, 9-month-olds manifested a floor effect such that no still face effect could be shown. For gazing, 9-month-olds' still face response was modulated by the context of interaction such that it was less pronounced if a happy still face was presented first. The findings point to a developmental transition by the end of the first year, whereby infants' still face response becomes increasingly influenced by the context of social interaction.

show abstract

Infants' ability to connect gaze and emotional expression to intentional action

Cited by 312 publications

References 33 publications

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

Actors and actions: The role of agent behavior in infants’ attribution of goals

Sensitivity to the context of facial expression in the still face at 3-, 6-, and 9-months of age

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About