Psychological reasoning in infancy Flashcards
Intentionality
mental states directed at something (goal , action or object)
How do people judge if intentional or accidental
heuristics (psychological reasoning)
Intentionality requires
recognise self as agent
detect goal status of others
isolate intentional behaviours from desires
distinguish accidental from motivated
Agency
sense of self as having ability to control ones own actions
studies of causal relationships in infants
Rovee-collier contingent learning and memory in kicking
Striano- contingents vs non contingent vs imitation.
1mo no discriminate butt 3mo smile and gaze more in typical
imitation as learned sense of agency
Meltzoff- cross-modality mapping
links own desires to actions of ones own body joined up experience of agency
Nativist view of building agency
Natural pedagogy- adult role of teacher with natural tendency to orient infant to sig of communication cues that enable learning new things
Agency in infants study
Light box study
Gergely et al - replication with intention. imitating head banging when holding blanket but not when hands free as seen as irrational
Recognising intention - gaze following study
9-11 months watch adult with eyes closed or open towards target
9 follow regardless but 10+ only if eyes open
positive correlation between gaze following and subsequent language scores
need rich mentalistic understanding of others minds to follow gaze
Recognising intentions in direct gaze study
Adult actor indicates desire for toy
Gaze + reach or just gaze
VOE dv
7-9 don’t distinguish unless reach
12 + use gaze alone so understand they had a goal (principle of consistency impacts behaviour)
Communicative intent at 12mo
explain infant communicative behaviour using mental states
imitate on purpose
proto-declarative pointing
gaze-following
engaging wit actions of agents towards goals
Rationality principles
Underlies psychological (mental state) reasoning - all things equal agent will act rationally
efficiency -agents little effort as possible to achieve goals
Consistency- agents act in manner consistent of mental states
Reasoning of predicting actions study
inference about desire for toy
hand or claw swerve to indicate desired toy
Video of incomplete reach for toy
an predict swerve for hand but not claw
Motivational state
Agent act to achieve goals
combining agents and goals study
Habituate to rational actions of balls in scene - ball wants to get the other ball. will jump if barrier present
either go straight or jump with no barrier present
experimental group look more at irrational jump
Teleological stance
apply rational principles to behaviour rather then have access to intentionality
Overall evidence for infants detecting intentionality
detect agency
aware of goal states
aware that actions cause goals
sensitive to rational vs irrational action in specific environments
Intentions vs desires
intentions- planned for
desires- wished for
by 4years
isolating intention from accident study
training phase showing what device does
accidental action say whoops
purpose action say there
see if child imitates
by 18monts way more likely to imitate intentional over accidental
Reasoning about agents perspective study
infant see all view of scene actor has occluded part
either completely hidden short barrier or tall object
actor reach for yellow rugby ball
When occlusion removed more looking when actor reaches for red box when they could already see In compared to no discrimination of previous fully occluded condition
Evidence for efficiency principle
VOE- agents cover toys either opaque or transparent. infants expect agent to reach for transparent covered toy as most efficient
Also ball study
Consistency principle study
One where agent shows preference for one toy and infants look longer if they switch
Consistency over efficiency
Agent shows preference for object A. in test trials infants expect agent to still go for A even if its harder to get to.
Deciding if an agent
novel entity seen as agent if gives sufficient evidence that it has internal control over its actions. has some goal.
Novel entity agent study
robot entity rest against object A. Only seen as agent if responded to experimenter in a proper interaction. seen as pursing a communication goal
Reasons children not interpret goals
lack relevant knowledge (hand to back of head study)
lack of sufficient knowledge to guide reasoning
Attributing preference
Extend to similar categories
emotional info
effort info
equifinality information- adjust actions depending on where target item is
pedagogical contexts- if someone else acting happy to infant and object assume others share same prefernce
epistemic states
expect agent who witnessed event to have knowledge of it
Behavioural rule view
perceive agents acting on objects but expectations are statistical rather then causal
unlikely to be true as psychological reasoning very context sensitive
teleological view
engage in psychological reasoning and abide by a principle of rationality, but their reasoning is at first nonmentalistic and reality based
infants not attribute goals but tract outcomes and are egocentric
unlikely to be true as infant understand agents can be wrong so must hold some mentalistic
