Infants infer potential social partners by observing the interactions of their parent with unknown others
Name
pnas.2121390119.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.43 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f99697a362894770bfbf484dbb1c9a4d
Author(s)
Thomas, Ashley J
Saxe, Rebecca
Spelke, Elizabeth S
Date Issued
2022
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Citation
Thomas, Ashley J, Saxe, Rebecca and Spelke, Elizabeth S. 2022. "Infants infer potential social partners by observing the interactions of their parent with unknown others." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119 (32).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Infants are born into networks of individuals who are socially connected. How do infants begin learning which individuals are their own potential social partners? Using digitally edited videos, we showed 12-mo-old infants’ social interactions between unknown individuals and their own parents. In studies 1 to 4, after their parent showed affiliation toward one puppet, infants expected that puppet to engage with them. In study 5, infants made the reverse inference; after a puppet engaged with them, the infants expected that puppet to respond to their parent. In each study, infants’ inferences were specific to social interactions that involved their own parent as opposed to another infant’s parent. Thus, infants combine observation of social interactions with knowledge of their preexisting relationship with their parent to discover which newly encountered individuals are potential social partners for themselves and their families.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship
Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1073/PNAS.2121390119
