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Manzi F, Ishikawa M, Di Dio C, Itakura S, Kanda T, Ishiguro H, Massaro D, Marchetti A. Infants’ Prediction of Humanoid Robot’s Goal-Directed Action. Int J Soc Robot 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s12369-022-00941-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
AbstractSeveral studies have shown that infants anticipate human goal-directed actions, but not robot’s ones. However, the studies focusing on the robot goal-directed actions have mainly analyzed the effect of mechanical arms on infant’s attention. To date, the prediction of goal-directed actions in infants has not yet been studied when the agent is a humanoid robot. Given this lack of evidence in infancy research, the present study aims at analyzing infants’ action anticipation of both a human’s and a humanoid robot’s goal-directed action. Data were acquired on thirty 17-month-old infants, watching four video clips, where either a human or a humanoid robot performed a goal-directed action, i.e. reaching a target. Infants looking behavior was measured through the eye-tracking technique. The results showed that infants anticipated the goal-directed action of both the human and the robot and there were no differences in the anticipatory gaze behavior between the two agents. Furthermore, the findings indicated different attentional patterns for the human and the robot, showing a greater attention paid to the robot's face than the human’s face. Overall, the results suggest that 17-month-old infants may infer also humanoid robot’ underlying action goals.
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2
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Kominsky JF, Lucca K, Thomas AJ, Frank MC, Hamlin JK. Simplicity and validity in infant research. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101213] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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3
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Kominsky JF, Li Y, Carey S. Infants’ Attributions of Insides and Animacy in Causal Interactions. Cogn Sci 2022; 46:e13087. [DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/19/2021] [Revised: 12/07/2021] [Accepted: 12/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Yiping Li
- Department of Psychology Harvard University
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4
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Adam M, Gumbsch C, Butz MV, Elsner B. The Impact of Action Effects on Infants' Predictive Gaze Shifts for a Non-Human Grasping Action at 7, 11, and 18 Months. Front Psychol 2021; 12:695550. [PMID: 34447336 PMCID: PMC8382717 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.695550] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2021] [Accepted: 07/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
During the observation of goal-directed actions, infants usually predict the goal at an earlier age when the agent is familiar (e.g., human hand) compared to unfamiliar (e.g., mechanical claw). These findings implicate a crucial role of the developing agentive self for infants’ processing of others’ action goals. Recent theoretical accounts suggest that predictive gaze behavior relies on an interplay between infants’ agentive experience (top-down processes) and perceptual information about the agent and the action-event (bottom-up information; e.g., agency cues). The present study examined 7-, 11-, and 18-month-old infants’ predictive gaze behavior for a grasping action performed by an unfamiliar tool, depending on infants’ age-related action knowledge about tool-use and the display of the agency cue of producing a salient action effect. The results are in line with the notion of a systematic interplay between experience-based top-down processes and cue-based bottom-up information: Regardless of the salient action effect, predictive gaze shifts did not occur in the 7-month-olds (least experienced age group), but did occur in the 18-month-olds (most experienced age group). In the 11-month-olds, however, predictive gaze shifts occurred only when a salient action effect was presented. This sheds new light on how the developing agentive self, in interplay with available agency cues, supports infants’ action-goal prediction also for observed tool-use actions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maurits Adam
- Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Christian Gumbsch
- Neuro-Cognitive Modeling, Department of Computer Science and Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.,Autonomous Learning Group, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Martin V Butz
- Neuro-Cognitive Modeling, Department of Computer Science and Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Birgit Elsner
- Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
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Gumbsch C, Adam M, Elsner B, Butz MV. Emergent Goal-Anticipatory Gaze in Infants via Event-Predictive Learning and Inference. Cogn Sci 2021; 45:e13016. [PMID: 34379329 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2020] [Revised: 05/17/2021] [Accepted: 06/16/2021] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
From about 7 months of age onward, infants start to reliably fixate the goal of an observed action, such as a grasp, before the action is complete. The available research has identified a variety of factors that influence such goal-anticipatory gaze shifts, including the experience with the shown action events and familiarity with the observed agents. However, the underlying cognitive processes are still heavily debated. We propose that our minds (i) tend to structure sensorimotor dynamics into probabilistic, generative event-predictive, and event boundary predictive models, and, meanwhile, (ii) choose actions with the objective to minimize predicted uncertainty. We implement this proposition by means of event-predictive learning and active inference. The implemented learning mechanism induces an inductive, event-predictive bias, thus developing schematic encodings of experienced events and event boundaries. The implemented active inference principle chooses actions by aiming at minimizing expected future uncertainty. We train our system on multiple object-manipulation events. As a result, the generation of goal-anticipatory gaze shifts emerges while learning about object manipulations: the model starts fixating the inferred goal already at the start of an observed event after having sampled some experience with possible events and when a familiar agent (i.e., a hand) is involved. Meanwhile, the model keeps reactively tracking an unfamiliar agent (i.e., a mechanical claw) that is performing the same movement. We qualitatively compare these modeling results to behavioral data of infants and conclude that event-predictive learning combined with active inference may be critical for eliciting goal-anticipatory gaze behavior in infants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Gumbsch
- Neuro-Cognitive Modeling Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Tübingen.,Autonomous Learning Group, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
| | | | | | - Martin V Butz
- Neuro-Cognitive Modeling Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Tübingen
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6
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Kominsky JF, Shafto P, Bonawitz E. "There's something inside": Children's intuitions about animate agents. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0251081. [PMID: 34010276 PMCID: PMC8133430 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2020] [Accepted: 04/19/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
From infancy, humans have the ability to distinguish animate agents from inert objects, and preschoolers map biological and mechanical insides to their appropriate kinds. However, less is known about how identifying something as an animate agent shapes specific inferences about its internal properties. Here, we test whether preschool children (N = 92; North American population) have specifically biological expectations about animate agents, or if they have more general expectations that animate agents should have an internal source of motion. We presented preschoolers with videos of two puppets: a "self-propelled" fur-covered puppet, and a fur-covered puppet that is seen to be moved by a human actor. In addition, we presented preschoolers with images of a familiar artifact (motorcycle) and familiar animal (sheep). For each item, we asked them to choose what they thought was inside each of these entities: nothing, biological insides, or mechanical insides. Preschoolers were less likely to say that a self-propelled fur-covered object was empty, compared to a fur-covered object that was moved by a human actor, which converges with past work with infants. However, preschoolers showed no specifically biological expectations about these objects, despite being able to accurately match biological insides to familiar animals and mechanical insides to familiar artifacts on the follow-up measure. These results suggest that preschoolers do not have specifically biological expectations about animate agents as a category, but rather general expectations that such agents should not be empty inside.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan F. Kominsky
- Rutgers University–Newark, Chicago, NJ, United States of America
- Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, England
| | - Patrick Shafto
- Rutgers University–Newark, Chicago, NJ, United States of America
| | - Elizabeth Bonawitz
- Rutgers University–Newark, Chicago, NJ, United States of America
- Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, England
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7
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Ganglmayer K, Haupt M, Finke K, Paulus M. Adults, but not preschoolers or toddlers integrate situational constraints in their action anticipations: a developmental study on the flexibility of anticipatory gaze. Cogn Process 2021; 22:515-528. [PMID: 33763791 PMCID: PMC8324589 DOI: 10.1007/s10339-021-01015-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2019] [Accepted: 01/16/2021] [Indexed: 10/29/2022]
Abstract
Recent theories stress the role of situational information in understanding others' behaviour. For example, the predictive coding framework assumes that people take contextual information into account when anticipating other's actions. Likewise, the teleological stance theory assumes an early developing ability to consider situational constraints in action prediction. The current study investigates, over a wide age range, whether humans flexibly integrate situational constraints in their action anticipations. By means of an eye-tracking experiment, 2-year-olds, 5-year-olds, younger and older adults (together N = 181) observed an agent repeatedly taking one of two paths to reach a goal. Then, this path became blocked, and for test trials only the other path was passable. Results demonstrated that in test trials younger and older adults anticipated that the agent would take the continuous path, indicating that they took the situational constraints into account. In contrast, 2- and 5-year-olds anticipated that the agent would take the blocked path, indicating that they still relied on the agent's previous observed behaviour and-contrary to claims by the teleological stance theory-did not take the situational constraints into account. The results highlight developmental changes in human's ability to include situational constraints in their visual anticipations. Overall, the study contributes to theories on predictive coding and the development of action understanding.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kerstin Ganglmayer
- Department Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München, Leopoldstr. 13, 80802, Munich, Germany.
| | - Marleen Haupt
- Department Psychology, General and Experimental Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universtität München, Munich, Germany
| | - Kathrin Finke
- Department Psychology, General and Experimental Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universtität München, Munich, Germany.,Hans-Berger Department of Neurology, University Hospital Jena, Jena, Germany
| | - Markus Paulus
- Department Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München, Leopoldstr. 13, 80802, Munich, Germany
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Adam M, Elsner B. The impact of salient action effects on 6-, 7-, and 11-month-olds' goal-predictive gaze shifts for a human grasping action. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0240165. [PMID: 33007025 PMCID: PMC7531859 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240165] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2020] [Accepted: 09/21/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
When infants observe a human grasping action, experience-based accounts predict that all infants familiar with grasping actions should be able to predict the goal regardless of additional agency cues such as an action effect. Cue-based accounts, however, suggest that infants use agency cues to identify and predict action goals when the action or the agent is not familiar. From these accounts, we hypothesized that younger infants would need additional agency cues such as a salient action effect to predict the goal of a human grasping action, whereas older infants should be able to predict the goal regardless of agency cues. In three experiments, we presented 6-, 7-, and 11-month-olds with videos of a manual grasping action presented either with or without an additional salient action effect (Exp. 1 and 2), or we presented 7-month-olds with videos of a mechanical claw performing a grasping action presented with a salient action effect (Exp. 3). The 6-month-olds showed tracking gaze behavior, and the 11-month-olds showed predictive gaze behavior, regardless of the action effect. However, the 7-month-olds showed predictive gaze behavior in the action-effect condition, but tracking gaze behavior in the no-action-effect condition and in the action-effect condition with a mechanical claw. The results therefore support the idea that salient action effects are especially important for infants' goal predictions from 7 months on, and that this facilitating influence of action effects is selective for the observation of human hands.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maurits Adam
- Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
| | - Birgit Elsner
- Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
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9
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Elsner B, Adam M. Infants’ Goal Prediction for Simple Action Events: The Role of Experience and Agency Cues. Top Cogn Sci 2020; 13:45-62. [DOI: 10.1111/tops.12494] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2019] [Revised: 01/29/2020] [Accepted: 01/29/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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10
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Abstract
The status of thematic roles such as Agent and Patient in cognitive science is highly controversial: To some they are universal components of core knowledge, to others they are scholarly fictions without psychological reality. We address this debate by posing two critical questions: to what extent do humans represent events in terms of abstract role categories, and to what extent are these categories shaped by universal cognitive biases? We review a range of literature that contributes answers to these questions: psycholinguistic and event cognition experiments with adults, children, and infants; typological studies grounded in cross-linguistic data; and studies of emerging sign languages. We pose these questions for a variety of roles and find that the answers depend on the role. For Agents and Patients, there is strong evidence for abstract role categories and a universal bias to distinguish the two roles. For Goals and Recipients, we find clear evidence for abstraction but mixed evidence as to whether there is a bias to encode Goals and Recipients as part of one or two distinct categories. Finally, we discuss the Instrumental role and do not find clear evidence for either abstraction or universal biases to structure instrumental categories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lilia Rissman
- Center for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
| | - Asifa Majid
- Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK
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Ganglmayer K, Attig M, Daum MM, Paulus M. Infants’ perception of goal-directed actions: A multi-lab replication reveals that infants anticipate paths and not goals. Infant Behav Dev 2019; 57:101340. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.101340] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2018] [Revised: 03/22/2019] [Accepted: 07/10/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
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12
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Affiliation(s)
- Lauren H. Howard
- Department of Psychology, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, 17603, USA
| | - Amanda L. Woodward
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA
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13
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Burnside K, Severdija V, Poulin-Dubois D. Infants attribute false beliefs to a toy crane. Dev Sci 2019; 23:e12887. [PMID: 31309631 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12887] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2018] [Revised: 07/05/2019] [Accepted: 07/06/2019] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
The mentalistic view of early theory of mind posits that infants possess a robust and sophisticated understanding of false belief that is masked by the demands of traditional explicit tasks. Much of the evidence supporting this mentalistic view comes from infants' looking time at events that violate their expectations about the beliefs of a human agent. We conducted a replication of the violation-of-expectation procedure, except that the human agent was replaced by an inanimate agent. Infants watched a toy crane repeatedly move toward a box containing an object. In the absence of the crane, the object changed location. When the crane returned, 16-month-old infants looked longer when it turned toward the object's new location, consistent with the attribution of a false belief to the crane. These results suggest that infants spontaneously attribute false beliefs to inanimate agents. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/qqEPPhd9FDo.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kimberly Burnside
- Centre for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada
| | - Vivianne Severdija
- Centre for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada
| | - Diane Poulin-Dubois
- Centre for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada
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14
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Levine D, Buchsbaum D, Hirsh‐Pasek K, Golinkoff RM. Finding events in a continuous world: A developmental account. Dev Psychobiol 2018; 61:376-389. [DOI: 10.1002/dev.21804] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2018] [Revised: 09/21/2018] [Accepted: 10/10/2018] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
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15
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Action effects foster 11-month-olds’ prediction of action goals for a non-human agent. Infant Behav Dev 2018; 53:49-55. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.09.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2018] [Revised: 09/10/2018] [Accepted: 09/11/2018] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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