Pointing behavior in infants reflects the communication partner's attentional and knowledge states: a possible case of spontaneous informing

PLoS One. 2014 Sep 11;9(9):e107579. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107579. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Inferring the epistemic states of others is considered to be an essential requirement for humans to communicate; however, the developmental trajectory of this ability is unclear. The aim of the current study was to determine developmental trends in this ability by using pointing behavior as a dependent measure. Infants aged 13 to 18 months (n = 32, 16 females) participated in the study. The experiment consisted of two phases. In the Shared Experience Phase, both the participant and the experimenter experienced (played with) an object, and the participant experienced a second object while the experimenter was absent. In the Pointing Phase, the participant was seated on his/her mother's lap, facing the experimenter, and the same two objects from the Shared Experience Phase were presented side-by-side behind the experimenter. The participants' spontaneous pointing was analyzed from video footage. While the analysis of the Shared Experience Phase suggested that there was no significant difference in the duration of the participants' visual attention to the two objects, the participants pointed more frequently to the object that could be considered "new" for the experimenter (in Experiment 1). This selective pointing was not observed when the experimenter could be considered unfamiliar with both of the objects (in Experiment 2). These findings suggest that infants in this age group spontaneously point, presumably to inform about an object, reflecting the partner's attentional and knowledge states.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Attention*
  • Female
  • Fingers / physiology
  • Gestures*
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Knowledge
  • Male
  • Mother-Child Relations
  • Movement

Grants and funding

This work is supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “Empathetic Systems” (No.4501) of The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan. (http://empatheticsystems.jp/index-e.html), and is partly supported by the JSPS grant of Program for Leading Graduate Schools P02 (http://ketsudan.kyushu-u.ac.jp/?lng=e&lng=e). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.