Infants’ prospective control during object manipulation in an uncertain environment

Gottwald, Janna M.; Gredebäck, Gustaf

doi:10.1007/s00221-015-4308-7

Cited by 15 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Depending on the paradigm and the utilized method, relative high dropout rates up to 50% are common in infancy research due to fussiness and habituation of the infants (cf. Gottwald & Gredebäck, 2015: 39%, Claxton et al 2003: 30%, Zaal & Thelen, 2005. The amount of 34% is within an acceptable range, especially given that the infants had to start their reaches from a defined area.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants prospectively control reaching based on the difficulty of future actions: To what extent can infants’ multiple-step actions be explained by Fitts’ law?

Gottwald

Vizioli

Lindskog

et al. 2017

Developmental Psychology

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Prospective motor control, a key element of action planning, is the ability to adjust one's actions with respect to task demands and action goals in an anticipatory manner. The current study investigates whether 14-month-olds can prospectively control their reaching actions based on the difficulty of the subsequent action. We used a reach-to-place task, with difficulty of the placing action varied by goal size and goal distance. To target prospective motor control, we determined the kinematics of the prior reaching movements using a motion-tracking system. Peak velocity of the first movement unit of the reach served as indicator for prospective motor control. Both difficulty aspects (goal size and goal distance) affected prior reaching, suggesting that both these aspects of the subsequent action have an impact on the prior action. The smaller the goal size and the longer the distance to the goal, the slower infants were in the beginning of their reach toward the object. Additionally, we modeled movement times of both reaching and placing actions using a formulation of Fitts' law (as in heading). The model was significant for placement and reaching movement times. These findings suggest that 14-month-olds can plan their future actions and prospectively control their related movements with respect to future task difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants prospectively control reaching based on the difficulty of future actions: To what extent can infants’ multiple-step actions be explained by Fitts’ law?

Gottwald

Vizioli

Lindskog

et al. 2017

Developmental Psychology

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“…Velocity reaches its peak at the end of the acceleration phase (Gottwald & Gredebäck, 2015; von Hofsten, 1991). The peak velocity of the first movement unit was extracted from the kinematic data.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Embodied Account of Early Executive-Function Development

et al. 2016

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The importance of executive functioning for later life outcomes, along with its potential to be positively affected by intervention programs, motivates the need to find early markers of executive functioning. In this study, 18-month-olds performed three executive-function tasks—involving simple inhibition, working memory, and more complex inhibition—and a motion-capture task assessing prospective motor control during reaching. We demonstrated that prospective motor control, as measured by the peak velocity of the first movement unit, is related to infants’ performance on simple-inhibition and working memory tasks. The current study provides evidence that motor control and executive functioning are intertwined early in life, which suggests an embodied perspective on executive-functioning development. We argue that executive functions and prospective motor control develop from a common source and a single motive: to control action. This is the first demonstration that low-level movement planning is related to higher-order executive control early in life.

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“…But when does this involvement of weight in understanding motion events begin? Even within their first year, infants seem to at least rudimentarily appreciate object weight differences (Gottwald & Gredebäck, 2015;Hauf, Paulus, & Baillargeon, 2012;Molina & Jouen, 2003;Molina, Guimpel, & Jouen, 2006;, so an understanding of weight as a concept appears early in development. Does it interfere with behaviour in tasks such as the one typically resulting in a gravity bias?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

It’s all relative: The role of object weight in toddlers’ gravity bias

Hast

2018

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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Work over the past 20 years has demonstrated a gravity bias in toddlers; when an object is dropped into a curved tube, they will frequently search at a point immediately beneath the entry of the tube rather than in the object's actual location. The current study tested 2- to 3½-year-olds' (N = 88) gravity bias under consideration of object weight. They were tested with either a heavy or light ball, and they had information about either one of the balls only or both balls. Evaluating their first search behavior showed that participants generally displayed the same age trends as other studies had demonstrated, with older toddlers passing more advanced task levels by being able to locate objects in the correct location. Object weight appeared to have no particular impact on the direction of these trends. However, where weight was accessible as relative information, toddlers were younger at passing levels and older at failing levels, although significantly so only from around 3 years of age onward. When they failed levels, toddlers made significantly more gravity errors with the heavy ball when they had information about both balls and made more correct choices with the light ball. As a whole, the findings suggest that nonvisual object variables, such as weight, affect young children's search behaviors in the gravity task, but only if these variables are presented in relation to other objects. This relational information has the potential to enhance or diminish the gravity bias.

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Infants’ prospective control during object manipulation in an uncertain environment

Cited by 15 publications

References 25 publications

Infants prospectively control reaching based on the difficulty of future actions: To what extent can infants’ multiple-step actions be explained by Fitts’ law?

Infants prospectively control reaching based on the difficulty of future actions: To what extent can infants’ multiple-step actions be explained by Fitts’ law?

An Embodied Account of Early Executive-Function Development

It’s all relative: The role of object weight in toddlers’ gravity bias

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