Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age

Gergely, György; Nádasdy, Zoltán; Csibra, Gergely; Bı́ró, Szilvia

doi:10.1016/0010-0277(95)00661-h

Cited by 1,158 publications

(946 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…While proficient reasoning about agents' goals has been shown from late infancy (see e.g. Gergely, Nadasdy, Csibra, & Bíró, 1995;Spelke, Phillips, & Woodward, 1995), the ability to deploy an early competence with mental states is known to be affected by various performance factors which continue to develop over the period between 4 and 7 years of age (German & Leslie, 2000Leslie & Polizzi, 1998). Critically, reasoning about recursive mental state contents is known to lag behind reasoning about first order mental states (Perner & Wimmer, 1985;Sullivan, Winner, & Hopfield, 1995).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acquiring an understanding of design: evidence from children's insight problem solving

2003

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The human ability to make tools and use them to solve problems may not be zoologically unique, but it is certainly extraordinary. Yet little is known about the conceptual machinery that makes humans so competent at making and using tools. Do adults and children have concepts specialized for understanding human-made artifacts? If so, are these concepts deployed in attempts to solve novel problems? Here we present new data, derived from problem-solving experiments, which support the following. (i) The structure of the child's concept of artifact function changes profoundly between ages 5 and 7. At age 5, the child's conceptual machinery defines the function of an artifact as any goal a user might have; by age 7, its function is defined by the artifact's typical or intended use.(ii) This conceptual shift has a striking effect on problem-solving performance, i.e. the child's concept of artifact function appears to be deployed in problem solving. (iii) This effect on problem solving is not caused by differences in the amount of knowledge that children have about the typical use of a particular tool; it is mediated by the structure of the child's artifact concept (which organizes and deploys the child's knowledge). In two studies, children between 5 and 7 years of age were matched for their knowledge of what a particular artifact "is for", and then given a problem that can only be solved if that tool is used for an atypical purpose. All children performed well in a baseline condition. But when they were primed by a demonstration of the artifact's typical function, 5-yearold children solved the problem much faster than 6 -7-year-old children. Because all children knew what the tools were for, differences in knowledge alone cannot explain the results. We argue that the older children were slower to solve the problem when the typical function was primed because (i) their artifact concept plays a role in problem solving, and (ii) intended purpose is central to their concept of artifact function, but not to that of the younger children. q

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acquiring an understanding of design: evidence from children's insight problem solving

2003

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“…Is it necessary? Evidence from developmental psychology suggests that it is not: upon perceiving the relative motions of geometrical stimuli, 6-month-old infants automatically ascribe goals to them [31,32]. The question is: why do they ascribe goals to moving geometrical stimuli, and not to a metal claw moving towards a standing inanimate target [26]?…”

Section: Motor Simulation Motor Intentions and Prior Intentionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The motor theory of social cognition: a critique

Jacob

Jeannerod

2005

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

386

256

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“…Older children and adults plan their search in steps. One possible reason younger children neglect visual information is that they focus more on the goal of an action than on the procedures (Gergely, Nasady et al 1995;Meltzoff 1995;Carpenter, Akhtar et al 1998;Woodward 1998;Csibra, Gergely et al 1999;Woodward and Somerville 2000;Woodward, Sommerville et al 2001;Carpenter, Call et al 2002;Woodward and Guajardo 2002;Csibra, Biro et al 2003;Sommerville and Woodward 2005). Still, by the age of six years, when children are asked to describe the path from one place to another, they focus on the goal and not on the route there (Plumert, Pick et al 1994).…”

Section: Action Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fitting objects into holes: On the development of spatial cognition skills.

Örnkloo¹,

Hofsten²

2007

Developmental Psychology

121

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The authors examined 14-to 26-month-old infants' understanding of the spatial relationships between objects and apertures in an object manipulation task. The task was to insert objects with various cross-sections (circular, square, rectangular, ellipsoid, and triangular) into fitting apertures. A successful solution required the infant to mentally rotate the object to be fit into the aperture and use that information to plan the action. The object was presented standing up in half of the trials; in the other half, it was lying down. The results showed that infants solved the problem consistently from age 22 months and that a successful solution was associated with appropriate preadjustments before the hand arrived with the block to the aperture. No sex differences were found.

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Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age

Cited by 1,158 publications

References 22 publications

Acquiring an understanding of design: evidence from children's insight problem solving

Acquiring an understanding of design: evidence from children's insight problem solving

The motor theory of social cognition: a critique

Fitting objects into holes: On the development of spatial cognition skills.

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