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Infant Pointing: Communication to Cooperate or Communication to Learn?
Author(s) -
Southgate Victoria,
Van Maanen Catharine,
Csibra Gergely
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01028.x
Subject(s) - psychology , interrogative , gesture , interpretation (philosophy) , nonverbal communication , point (geometry) , cognitive psychology , mechanism (biology) , communication , developmental psychology , linguistics , epistemology , philosophy , geometry , mathematics
Tomasello, Carpenter, and Liszkowski (2007) present compelling data to support the view that infant pointing, from the outset, is communicative and deployed in many of the same situations in which adults would ordinarily point for one another, either to share their interest in something, or to informatively help the other person. This commentary concurs with the view that infant pointing is a communicative gesture, but challenges their interpretation of the motives behind pointing in 12‐month‐olds. An alternative account is proposed, according to which infant pointing is neither declarative nor imperative, but interrogative , and rather than being driven by the motive to share or help, it may serve a powerful cultural learning mechanism by which infants can obtain information from knowledgeable adults.