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Active Experience Shapes 10‐Month‐Old Infants’ Understanding of Collaborative Goals
Author(s) -
Henderson Annette M. E.,
Wang Ying,
Matz Lauren E.,
Woodward Amanda L.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
infancy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.361
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1532-7078
pISSN - 1525-0008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00126.x
Subject(s) - psychology , context (archaeology) , action (physics) , collaborative learning , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , pedagogy , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
Collaborative activities in which individuals coordinate their actions to attain a common goal play a fundamental role in our everyday lives. Evidence suggests that infants engage in collaborative activities before their first birthday; however, little is known about infants’ understanding of collaborative action. Using a visual habituation paradigm, this research consists of two experiments designed to investigate whether 10‐month‐olds understand that the actions of collaborative partners are critical to the attainment of a common goal. The results of Experiment 1 suggest that 10‐month‐olds represent the actions of collaborating partners in terms of a common collaborative goal only after receiving active experience with a collaborative activity. Experiment 2 demonstrated that infants who received active experience with a collaborative activity viewed active engagement in a collaboration as being critical for an individual’s actions to be interpreted as being directed towards a collaborative goal. Together, these findings demonstrate that 10‐month‐olds exhibit an understanding of the shared nature of collaborative goals after a highly salient experience with the activity. Identifying the effects of experience on infants’ understanding of collaborative goals in a laboratory context provides insights into the role that experiences in their everyday lives might play in their understanding of collaboration.