Title |
Infants in Control: Rapid Anticipation of Action Outcomes in a Gaze-Contingent Paradigm
|
---|---|
Published in |
PLOS ONE, February 2012
|
DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0030884 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Quan Wang, Jantina Bolhuis, Constantin A. Rothkopf, Thorsten Kolling, Monika Knopf, Jochen Triesch |
Abstract |
Infants' poor motor abilities limit their interaction with their environment and render studying infant cognition notoriously difficult. Exceptions are eye movements, which reach high accuracy early, but generally do not allow manipulation of the physical environment. In this study, real-time eye tracking is used to put 6- and 8-month-old infants in direct control of their visual surroundings to study the fundamental problem of discovery of agency, i.e. the ability to infer that certain sensory events are caused by one's own actions. We demonstrate that infants quickly learn to perform eye movements to trigger the appearance of new stimuli and that they anticipate the consequences of their actions in as few as 3 trials. Our findings show that infants can rapidly discover new ways of controlling their environment. We suggest that gaze-contingent paradigms offer effective new ways for studying many aspects of infant learning and cognition in an interactive fashion and provide new opportunities for behavioral training and treatment in infants. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
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United Kingdom | 1 | 33% |
United States | 1 | 33% |
Japan | 1 | 33% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
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Members of the public | 3 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Germany | 4 | 3% |
Canada | 3 | 2% |
Japan | 2 | 1% |
United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
France | 1 | <1% |
Spain | 1 | <1% |
Belgium | 1 | <1% |
United States | 1 | <1% |
Poland | 1 | <1% |
Other | 0 | 0% |
Unknown | 133 | 90% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 37 | 25% |
Researcher | 22 | 15% |
Student > Master | 21 | 14% |
Student > Bachelor | 13 | 9% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 12 | 8% |
Other | 23 | 16% |
Unknown | 20 | 14% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Psychology | 79 | 53% |
Computer Science | 7 | 5% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 6 | 4% |
Neuroscience | 6 | 4% |
Engineering | 5 | 3% |
Other | 19 | 13% |
Unknown | 26 | 18% |