How do 3-month-old infants attribute preferences to a human agent?

You-Jung Choi; Yi Mou; Yuyan Luo

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2018.03.004

How do 3-month-old infants attribute preferences to a human agent?

J Exp Child Psychol. 2018 Aug:172:96-106. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.03.004. Epub 2018 Mar 30.

Authors

You-Jung Choi¹, Yi Mou², Yuyan Luo³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Electronic address: youjungchoi@fas.harvard.edu.
² Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Province 510006, China.
³ Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.

PMID: 29605655
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.03.004

Abstract

The current study showed that 3-month-old infants attributed a preference to a human agent, with her face and upper body visible, when she consistently reached for and grasped one of two objects with her bare hand. In contrast, infants did not appear to interpret the agent's same actions of grasping the object as indicative of her preference when it was the only object present or when it hid the other object from her but not from the infants. These results suggest that even from an early age, infants interpret human agents' actions in terms of mental states such as goals and preferences. In light of the current results, mechanisms for early psychological understanding are discussed.

Keywords: Agents; Goal attribution; Infancy; Preferences; Psychological understanding; Social cognition.

MeSH terms

Cognition*
Comprehension*
Female
Goals
Humans
Infant
Male
Social Perception*