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Abstract (may include machine translation)
Human infants’ readiness to interpret impoverished object-transfer events as acts of giving suggests the existence of a dedicated action schema for identifying interactions based on active object transfer. Here we investigated the sensitivity of this giving schema by testing whether 15-month-olds would interpret the displacement of an object as an agent’s goal even if it could be dismissed as a side effect of a different goal. Across two looking-time experiments, we showed that, when the displacement only resulted in a change of object location, infants expected the agent to pursue the other goal. However, when the same change of location resulted in a transfer of object possession, infants reliably adopted this outcome as the agent’s goal. The interpretive shift that the mere presence of a potential recipient caused is testament to the infants’ susceptibility to cues of benefit delivery: an action efficiently causing a transfer of object possession appeared sufficient to induce the interpretation of goal-directed giving even if the transfer was carried out without any interaction between Giver and Givee and was embedded in an event affording an alternative goal interpretation.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 31-40 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Open Mind |
Volume | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2019 |
Keywords
- Action understanding
- Giving action schema
- Goal ascription
- Infants
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Dive into the research topics of 'Minimal cues of possession transfer compel infants to ascribe the goal of giving'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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PARTNERS: Tracking and Evaluating Social Relations and Potential Partners in Infancy
Csibra, G. (Researcher)
European Commission - H2020 - European Research Council - Advanced Grant
1/01/18 → 31/12/23
Project: Research