Infants' Perseverative Search Errors Are Induced by Pragmatic Misinterpretation

Topál, József; Gergely, György; Miklósi, Ádám; Erdőhegyi, Ágnes; Csibra, Gergely

doi:10.1126/science.1161437

Cited by 217 publications

(152 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Even the most conscientious confederates are at risk of inadvertently shaping participants' behavior by giving verbal backchannels or nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, body posture, tone of voice, pauses, or eye gaze patterns. Research has shown that these types of cues from an experimenter or examiner can influence people to do better on IQ tests (Congdon & Schober, 2002), inspire children to excel in their schoolwork (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968, lead infants to discard principles of object permanence (Topál, Gergely, Miklósi, Erdöhegyi, & Csibra, 2008), and even cause horses to behave as if they can read and do math (Pfungst, 1907).…”

Section: Concerns Risks and Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language in dialogue: when confederates might be hazardous to your data

2012

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Experiments that aim to model language processing in spoken dialogue contexts often use confederates as speakers or addressees. However, the decision of whether to use a confederate, and of precisely how to deploy one, is shaped by researchers' explicit theories and implicit assumptions about the nature of dialogue. When can a confederate fulfill the role of conversational partner without changing the nature of the dialogue itself? We survey the benefits and risks of using confederates in studies of language in dialogue contexts, identifying four concerns that appear to guide how confederates are deployed. We then discuss several studies that have addressed these concerns differently-and, in some cases, have found different results. We conclude with recommendations for how to weigh the benefits and risks of using experimental confederates in dialogue studies: Confederates are best used when an experimental hypothesis concerns responses to unusual behaviors or low-frequency linguistic forms and when the experimental task calls for the confederate partner to take the initiative as speaker. Confederates can be especially risky in the addressee role, especially if their nonverbal behavior is uncontrolled and if they know more than is warranted by the experimental task.

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Section: Concerns Risks and Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language in dialogue: when confederates might be hazardous to your data

2012

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“…Dogs in the Non-Social UMO treatment condition did not commit the A-not-B error, since their performance did not decrease significantly from A to B trials [3], as predicted if they did not consider the 'beep' cues conveyed by the UMO as having relevance. They responded similarly to dogs with a non-communicative human, or no partner (ball moved by 'invisible' string) in previous work [4].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social interaction with an “unidentified moving object” elicits A-not-B error in domestic dogs

Compton

Gergely

Newberry

et al. 2015

Journal of Veterinary Behavior

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Mechanical "unidentified moving objects" (UMO's) are useful for controlled investigations into features of social interaction that generate cooperativeness and positive social affiliation in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). We hypothesized that, if a UMO interacted socially with a dog, the UMO would become associated with certain social cues and would subsequently affect dog behaviour. We assigned dogs to a Human, Social UMO or Non-Social UMO partner. In the Human and Social UMO conditions, the partner interacted with the dog cooperatively whereas the Non-Social UMO partner was unresponsive to the dog's actions. We then tested dogs with their partner in a Piagetian A-not-B error paradigm, predicting that the Human and Social UMO partners would be more likely to elicit A-not-B errors in dogs than the Non-Social UMO partner. Five trials were conducted in which the dog watched its partner hide a ball behind one of two screens (A or B). As predicted, dogs in the Human and Social UMO conditions were more likely to search for the ball behind the A screen during B trials than dogs in the Non-Social UMO condition. These results reveal that the unfamiliar partner's social responsiveness leads rapidly to accepting information communicated by the partner. This study has generated a better understanding of crucial features of agents that promote dog social behaviour, which will facilitate the programming of robots for various cooperative tasks.

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“…There is a suggestive link between this finding and a recent attempt to explain the A not B search error. Topál, Gergely, Mikló si, Erdõ hegzi, and Csibra (2008) demonstrated that infants were more likely to make the error if the hider engaged them in eye contact and interaction. Their conclusion is that the error results from a misinterpretation of the adult's social cues, a misinterpretation in the sense that they take socially marked hiding at A to indicate that this is the place to search for objects.…”

Section: Perception Of Goal-directed Action and Animacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Four themes from 20 years of research on infant perception and cognition

Bremner

2011

Inf. Child Develop.

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This paper reviews progress over the past 20 years in four areas of research on infant perception and cognition. Work on perception of dynamic events has identified perceptual constraints on perception of object unity and object trajectory continuity that have led to a perceptual account of early development that supplements Nativist accounts. Work on face processing has charted developmental changes that clarify the way innate systems are modified by experience. Research on perception of goal-directed action and animacy has made significant progress in uncovering the roots of social cognition from 6 months onwards. New methods such as eye tracking and measures of brain activity have done much to confirm and clarify conclusions arising from more conventional looking preference methods. It is likely that future progress in theory and understanding will be made increasingly as a result of triangulation between data arising from conventional and newer methods.

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Infants' Perseverative Search Errors Are Induced by Pragmatic Misinterpretation

Cited by 217 publications

References 19 publications

Language in dialogue: when confederates might be hazardous to your data

Language in dialogue: when confederates might be hazardous to your data

Social interaction with an “unidentified moving object” elicits A-not-B error in domestic dogs

Four themes from 20 years of research on infant perception and cognition

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