Action production influences 12-month-old infants' attention to others' actions

Abstract

Recent work implicates a link between action control systems and action understanding. In this study, we investigated the role of the motor system in the development of visual anticipation of others' actions. Twelve-month-olds engaged in behavioral and observation tasks. Containment activity, infants' spontaneous engagement in producing containment actions; and gaze latency, how quickly they shifted gaze to the goal object of another's containment actions, were measured. Findings revealed a positive relationship: infants who received the behavior task first evidenced a strong correlation between their own actions and their subsequent gaze latency of another's actions. Learning over the course of trials was not evident. These findings demonstrate a direct influence of the motor system on online visual attention to others' actions early in development.

Figure 1

Areas of interest (AOI) used for data analysis: Start AOI, the region surrounding the balls (right), and End AOI, the region surrounding the bucket (left).

Figure 2

Average gaze latencies based on task order group (behavior first and observation first) and observation block (trials 1–5 and trials 6–9). The median gaze latency score for events in block 1 and block 2 was calculated for each infant, and averaged across the group. Points above 0 indicate gaze arrival before the ball arrival, and above 200 ms accounts for saccades launched prior to the ball arrival.

Figure 3

Individuals’ median gaze latency as a function of containment activity for each task order, a) behavior task first, r = .68, and b) observation task first, r = .10.