Infants use shared experience to interpret pointing gestures

We investigated whether 1‐year‐old infants use their shared experience with an adult to determine the meaning of a pointing gesture. In the first study, after two adults had each shared a different activity with the infant, one of the adults pointed to a target object. Eighteen‐ but not 14‐month‐old...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental science 2009-03, Vol.12 (2), p.264-271
Main Authors: Liebal, Kristin, Behne, Tanya, Carpenter, Malinda, Tomasello, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adults
Age Differences
Age Factors
Babies
Child Development
Child psychology
Cognition & reasoning
Cooperative Behavior
Developmental Stages
Familiarity
Gestures
Humans
Infant
Infant Behavior - psychology
Infants
Interpersonal Relationship
Language Acquisition
Nonverbal Communication
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We investigated whether 1‐year‐old infants use their shared experience with an adult to determine the meaning of a pointing gesture. In the first study, after two adults had each shared a different activity with the infant, one of the adults pointed to a target object. Eighteen‐ but not 14‐month‐olds responded appropriately to the pointing gesture based on the particular activity they had previously shared with that particular adult. In the second study, 14‐month‐olds were successful in a simpler procedure in which the pointing adult either had or had not shared a relevant activity with the infant prior to the pointing. Infants just beginning to learn language thus already show a complex understanding of the pragmatics of cooperative communication in which shared experience with particular individuals plays a crucial role.
ISSN:1363-755X
1467-7687
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00758.x