Understanding the effects of one's actions upon hidden objects and the development of search behaviour in 7‐month‐old infants

Abstract

Infants' understanding of how their actions affect the visibility of hidden objects may be a crucial aspect of the development of search behaviour. To investigate this possibility, 7-month-old infants took part in a two-day training study. At the start of the first session, and at the end of the second, all infants performed a search task with a hiding-well. On both days, infants had an additional training experience. The 'Agency group' learnt to spin a turntable to reveal a hidden toy, whilst the 'Means-End' group learnt the same means-end motor action, but the toy was always visible. The Agency group showed greater improvement on the hiding-well search task following their training experience. We suggest that the Agency group's turntable experience was effective because it provided the experience of bringing objects back into visibility by one's actions. Further, the performance of the Agency group demonstrates generalized transfer of learning across situations with both different motor actions and stimuli in infants as young as 7 months.

Means‐end problem solving in infancy: Development, emergence of intentionality, and transfer of knowledge

“…In contrast to others who have documented transfer of knowledge between two tasks requiring the same motor actions on different objects, O'Connor and Russell (2015) documented transfer of knowledge between two tasks requiring not only different objects, but also different actions. They found that after being trained to bring a hidden toy into view by rotating a turntable, 7-month-olds were able to successfully solve the hiding-well search task.…”

“…This confirmed that infants’ increase in goal‐directed behavior during Toy Trials likely represented the emergence of intentionality in means‐end problem solving (Willatts, ). Manual exploration of the means object coupled with visual observation of the effects on the end object may help young infants to develop a means‐end concept, so they can conceive and implement a correct sequence of actions (Bower & Wishart, ; Diamond, ) and also acquire “insight into agency” as they begin understanding the possible consequences of their own actions (O'Connor & Russell, ).…”

“…Infants’ active exploration facilitates their understanding of means‐end causal relations between objects (Lobo & Galloway, ; Sommerville & Woodward, ; Sommerville et al, ) and gradually improves their ability to transfer this knowledge across different situations and tasks (O'Connor & Russell, ). Although one might hypothesize that means‐end understanding appears separately in different, yet related tasks, rather than being transferred from one task to another, it is more likely that infants not only learn to understand means‐end relations in specific situations, but also acquire the ability to generalize that knowledge across related contexts.…”

“…Previous research has demonstrated a wide variety of transfer abilities in young children (e.g., Brown, 1990, Chen, Sanchez, & Campbell, 1997Munakata et al, 1997;O'Connor & Russell, 2015).…”

“…Previous research has demonstrated a wide variety of transfer abilities in young children (e.g., Brown, , Chen, Sanchez, & Campbell, ; Munakata et al, ; O'Connor & Russell, ). For example, Brown () reported on the transfer of knowledge in problem solving by analogy in 2‐ and 3‐year‐olds.…”