How infants learn about people and object causal action

Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN

Investigators

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY Causal perception—or the ability to see and appreciate simple causal relations in the world—is a cornerstone of early cognitive development and is what enables human beings to understand how the world works and how effectively to navigate it. Despite extensive research on causal perception—which has tended to use simple, Billiard-ball-like launching sequences in which some objects cause other objects to move—surprisingly little is known about when or how infants learn about the causal properties of people and inanimate objects. For example, at what point during the first year of life and by what developmental mechanism do infants learn that people can cause other agents to act and move either at a distance or on direct contact, whereas inanimate objects require contact to act and move? This project is designed to test two competitive theories for when and how infants acquire this knowledge. According to the Core Knowledge perspective, infants are born with “core systems” that enable them to know from birth (or shortly thereafter) that people and objects possess distinct causal properties. According to the Associative Learning perspective, infants come to know—rather than are born knowing—about people and object causal action via domain-general associative learning. This project is innovative because it will be the first to use multiple, converging methods—namely, behavioral experiments and neural network computational modeling—to elucidate the developmental timetable as well as developmental mechanism by which infants learn about people and object causal action. This project will also be the first directly to test which of two competing mechanistic theories explains infants’ knowledge about human and object causal action. Study 1 will establish when or the developmental timetable by which infants acquire this knowledge by testing infants between 4 and 11 months of age. The Core Knowledge perspective predicts that this knowledge should be present from the earliest ages tested, whereas the Associative Learning perspective predicts that this knowledge develops sometime during the first year of life. Study 2 and the computational model will directly test whether core systems or an associative-learning mechanism underlies infants’ knowledge about people and object causal action. This project has the potential to advance our knowledge and understanding of the origins and cognitive bases of early knowledge and the results from the completed project may have significant implications for physicians interested in improving the learning outcomes for individuals at risk for severe social deficits such as individuals diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.