1
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Wu Y, Zhang Z, Aghazadeh F, Zheng B. Early Eye Disengagement Is Regulated by Task Complexity and Task Repetition in Visual Tracking Task. SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2024; 24:2984. [PMID: 38793839 PMCID: PMC11125091 DOI: 10.3390/s24102984] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2024] [Revised: 05/06/2024] [Accepted: 05/06/2024] [Indexed: 05/26/2024]
Abstract
Understanding human actions often requires in-depth detection and interpretation of bio-signals. Early eye disengagement from the target (EEDT) represents a significant eye behavior that involves the proactive disengagement of the gazes from the target to gather information on the anticipated pathway, thereby enabling rapid reactions to the environment. It remains unknown how task difficulty and task repetition affect EEDT. We aim to provide direct evidence of how these factors influence EEDT. We developed a visual tracking task in which participants viewed arrow movement videos while their eye movements were tracked. The task complexity was increased by increasing movement steps. Every movement pattern was performed twice to assess the effect of repetition on eye movement. Participants were required to recall the movement patterns for recall accuracy evaluation and complete cognitive load assessment. EEDT was quantified by the fixation duration and frequency within the areas of eye before arrow. When task difficulty increased, we found the recall accuracy score decreased, the cognitive load increased, and EEDT decreased significantly. The EEDT was higher in the second trial, but significance only existed in tasks with lower complexity. EEDT was positively correlated with recall accuracy and negatively correlated with cognitive load. Performing EEDT was reduced by task complexity and increased by task repetition. EEDT may be a promising sensory measure for assessing task performance and cognitive load and can be used for the future development of eye-tracking-based sensors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yun Wu
- Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, 162A Heritage Medical Research Centre, 11207-87 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T6G 2S2, Canada; (Y.W.); (Z.Z.)
| | - Zhongshi Zhang
- Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, 162A Heritage Medical Research Centre, 11207-87 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T6G 2S2, Canada; (Y.W.); (Z.Z.)
| | - Farzad Aghazadeh
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2E1, Canada;
| | - Bin Zheng
- Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, 162A Heritage Medical Research Centre, 11207-87 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T6G 2S2, Canada; (Y.W.); (Z.Z.)
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2
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Gönül G, Kammermeier M, Paulus M. What is in an action? Preschool children predict that agents take previous paths and not previous goals. Dev Sci 2024; 27:e13466. [PMID: 38054272 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13466] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2021] [Revised: 11/17/2023] [Accepted: 11/27/2023] [Indexed: 12/07/2023]
Abstract
Developmental science has experienced a vivid debate on whether young children prioritize goals over means in their prediction of others' actions. Influential developmental theories highlight the role of goal objects for action understanding. Yet, recent infant studies report evidence for the opposite. The empirical evidence is therefore inconclusive. The current study advanced this debate by assessing preschool children's verbal predictions of others' actions. In five experiments (N = 302), we investigated whether preschool children and adults predict agents to move towards their previous goal (that is, show goal-related predictions) or predict agents to move along the same movement path that they pursued before. While Experiments 1a, 1b and 1c presented young children and adults with animated agents, Experiments 2a and 2b presented participants with human grasping action. An integrative analysis across experiments revealed that children were more likely to predict the agent to move along the same movement path, Z = -4.574, p ≤ 0.0001 (r = 0.304). That is, preschool children were more likely to predict that agents would move along the same trajectory even though this action would lead to a new goal object. Thus, our findings suggest that young children's action prediction relies on the detection of spatial and movement information. Overall, we discuss our findings in terms of theoretical frameworks that conceive of action understanding as an umbrella term that comprises different forms and facets in which humans understand others' actions. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We investigated whether preschool children predict agents to move towards their previous goal or to move along the same movement path that they pursued before. Unlike adults, preschool children predicted that agents would move along the same trajectory even though this action would lead to a new goal. Adults' goal-based predictions were affected from contextual details, whereas children systematically made path-based predictions. Young children's action prediction relies on the detection of spatial and movement information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gökhan Gönül
- Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
- Cognitive Science Centre, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchatel, Switzerland
| | - Marina Kammermeier
- Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
| | - Markus Paulus
- Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
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3
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Lonardo L, Völter CJ, Hepach R, Lamm C, Huber L. Do dogs preferentially encode the identity of the target object or the location of others' actions? Anim Cogn 2024; 27:28. [PMID: 38553650 PMCID: PMC10980658 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01870-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2023] [Revised: 03/22/2024] [Accepted: 03/24/2024] [Indexed: 04/02/2024]
Abstract
The ability to make sense of and predict others' actions is foundational for many socio-cognitive abilities. Dogs (Canis familiaris) constitute interesting comparative models for the study of action perception due to their marked sensitivity to human actions. We tested companion dogs (N = 21) in two screen-based eye-tracking experiments, adopting a task previously used with human infants and apes, to assess which aspects of an agent's action dogs consider relevant to the agent's underlying intentions. An agent was shown repeatedly acting upon the same one of two objects, positioned in the same location. We then presented the objects in swapped locations and the agent approached the objects centrally (Experiment 1) or the old object in the new location or the new object in the old location (Experiment 2). Dogs' anticipatory fixations and looking times did not reflect an expectation that agents should have continued approaching the same object nor the same location as witnessed during the brief familiarization phase; this contrasts with some findings with infants and apes, but aligns with findings in younger infants before they have sufficient motor experience with the observed action. However, dogs' pupil dilation and latency to make an anticipatory fixation suggested that, if anything, dogs expected the agents to keep approaching the same location rather than the same object, and their looking times showed sensitivity to the animacy of the agents. We conclude that dogs, lacking motor experience with the observed actions of grasping or kicking performed by a human or inanimate agent, might interpret such actions as directed toward a specific location rather than a specific object. Future research will need to further probe the suitability of anticipatory looking as measure of dogs' socio-cognitive abilities given differences between the visual systems of dogs and primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucrezia Lonardo
- Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine of Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, Veterinärplatz 1, Vienna, 1210, Austria.
| | - Christoph J Völter
- Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine of Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, Veterinärplatz 1, Vienna, 1210, Austria
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
| | - Robert Hepach
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK
| | - Claus Lamm
- Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, 1010, Austria
| | - Ludwig Huber
- Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine of Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, Veterinärplatz 1, Vienna, 1210, Austria
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4
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Sirois S, Brisson J, Blaser E, Calignano G, Donenfeld J, Hepach R, Hochmann JR, Kaldy Z, Liszkowski U, Mayer M, Ross-Sheehy S, Russo S, Valenza E. The pupil collaboration: A multi-lab, multi-method analysis of goal attribution in infants. Infant Behav Dev 2023; 73:101890. [PMID: 37944367 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101890] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2022] [Revised: 09/27/2023] [Accepted: 09/27/2023] [Indexed: 11/12/2023]
Abstract
The rise of pupillometry in infant research over the last decade is associated with a variety of methods for data preprocessing and analysis. Although pupil diameter is increasingly recognized as an alternative measure of the popular cumulative looking time approach used in many studies (Jackson & Sirois, 2022), an open question is whether the many approaches used to analyse this variable converge. To this end, we proposed a crowdsourced approach to pupillometry analysis. A dataset from 30 9-month-old infants (15 girls; Mage = 282.9 days, SD = 8.10) was provided to 7 distinct teams for analysis. The data were obtained from infants watching video sequences showing a hand, initially resting between two toys, grabbing one of them (after Woodward, 1998). After habituation, infants were shown (in random order) a sequence of four test events that varied target position and target toy. Results show that looking times reflect primarily the familiar path of the hand, regardless of target toy. Gaze data similarly show this familiarity effect of path. The pupil dilation analyses show that features of pupil baseline measures (duration and temporal location) as well as data retention variation (trial and/or participant) due to different inclusion criteria from the various analysis methods are linked to divergences in findings. Two of the seven teams found no significant findings, whereas the remaining five teams differ in the pattern of findings for main and interaction effects. The discussion proposes guidelines for best practice in the analysis of pupillometry data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sylvain Sirois
- Département de Psychologie, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada.
| | - Julie Brisson
- Centre de Recherche sur les fonctionnements et dysfonctionnements psychologiques (EA7475), Université de Rouen Normandie, France
| | - Erik Blaser
- Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
| | - Giulia Calignano
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Italy
| | - Jamie Donenfeld
- Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
| | - Robert Hepach
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK
| | - Jean-Rémy Hochmann
- CNRS UMR5229 - Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, Université Lyon 1, France
| | - Zsuzsa Kaldy
- Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
| | - Ulf Liszkowski
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Hamburg, Germany
| | - Marlena Mayer
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Hamburg, Germany
| | | | - Sofia Russo
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Italy
| | - Eloisa Valenza
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Italy
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5
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Socially evaluative contexts facilitate mentalizing. Trends Cogn Sci 2023; 27:17-29. [PMID: 36357300 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.10.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2021] [Revised: 10/08/2022] [Accepted: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Our ability to understand others' minds stands at the foundation of human learning, communication, cooperation, and social life more broadly. Although humans' ability to mentalize has been well-studied throughout the cognitive sciences, little attention has been paid to whether and how mentalizing differs across contexts. Classic developmental studies have examined mentalizing within minimally social contexts, in which a single agent seeks a neutral inanimate object. Such object-directed acts may be common, but they are typically consequential only to the object-seeking agent themselves. Here, we review a host of indirect evidence suggesting that contexts providing the opportunity to evaluate prospective social partners may facilitate mentalizing across development. Our article calls on cognitive scientists to study mentalizing in contexts where it counts.
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6
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Stahl AE, Kibbe MM. Great expectations: The construct validity of the violation‐of‐expectation method for studying infant cognition. INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/icd.2359] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Aimee E. Stahl
- Department of Psychology The College of New Jersey Ewing New Jersey USA
| | - Melissa M. Kibbe
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Center for Systems Neuroscience Boston University Boston Massachusetts USA
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7
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Wilson VAD, Zuberbühler K, Bickel B. The evolutionary origins of syntax: Event cognition in nonhuman primates. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2022; 8:eabn8464. [PMID: 35731868 PMCID: PMC9216513 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn8464] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2021] [Accepted: 05/05/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Languages tend to encode events from the perspective of agents, placing them first and in simpler forms than patients. This agent bias is mirrored by cognition: Agents are more quickly recognized than patients and generally attract more attention. This leads to the hypothesis that key aspects of language structure are fundamentally rooted in a cognition that decomposes events into agents, actions, and patients, privileging agents. Although this type of event representation is almost certainly universal across languages, it remains unclear whether the underlying cognition is uniquely human or more widespread in animals. Here, we review a range of evidence from primates and other animals, which suggests that agent-based event decomposition is phylogenetically older than humans. We propose a research program to test this hypothesis in great apes and human infants, with the goal to resolve one of the major questions in the evolution of language, the origins of syntax.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vanessa A. D. Wilson
- Department of Comparative Cognition, Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Klaus Zuberbühler
- Department of Comparative Cognition, Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland
| | - Balthasar Bickel
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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8
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Paulus M. Should infant psychology rely on the
violation‐of‐expectation
method? Not anymore. INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/icd.2306] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Markus Paulus
- Department Psychology Ludwig‐Maximilians‐Universität München Munich Germany
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9
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Kosie JE, Baldwin DA. Dwell times showcase how goal structure informs preschoolers' analysis of unfolding motion patterns. Child Dev 2021; 92:2235-2243. [PMID: 34432889 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13661] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Using Hard et al.'s (2011) dwell-time paradigm, 85 preschoolers (aged 2.5-4.5; 43 female; primarily from white families) advanced at their own pace through one of three slideshows. All slideshows depicted an actor reaching toward, grasping, and retrieving a ball. However, motion patterns differed for one slideshow (straight-reach) relative to the other two (arcing-reaches), and one of the arcing-reach slideshows depicted a violation of typical goal-related motion. Preschoolers' knowledge of goal structure systematically modulated attention to event boundaries across slideshows despite surface differences, even when controlling for pixel change (an index of changes in motion). These findings showcase the value of the dwell time paradigm, and illuminate how children deploy attention as goal-related expectations shape their analysis of continuously unfolding activity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica E Kosie
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.,Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
| | - Dare A Baldwin
- Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
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10
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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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11
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Kampis D, Kármán P, Csibra G, Southgate V, Hernik M. A two-lab direct replication attempt of Southgate, Senju and Csibra (2007). ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2021; 8:210190. [PMID: 34457336 PMCID: PMC8386515 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.210190] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2021] [Accepted: 07/15/2021] [Indexed: 05/29/2023]
Abstract
The study by Southgate et al. (2007 Psychol. Sci. 18, 587-592. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01944.x)) has been widely cited as evidence for false-belief attribution in young children. Recent replication attempts of this paradigm have yielded mixed results: several studies did not replicate the original findings, raising doubts about the suitability of the paradigm to assess non-verbal action prediction and Theory of Mind. In a preregistered collaborative study including two of the original authors, we tested one hundred and sixty 24- to 26-month-olds across two locations using the original stimuli, procedure and analyses as closely as possible. We found no evidence for action anticipation: only roughly half of the infants looked to the location of an agent's impending action when action prediction did not require taking into account the agent's beliefs and a similar number when the agent held a false-belief. These results and other non-replications suggest that this paradigm does not reliably elicit action prediction and thus cannot assess false-belief understanding in 2-year-olds. While the present results do not support any claim regarding the presence or absence of Theory of Mind in infants, we conclude that an important piece of evidence that has to date supported arguments for the existence of this competence can no longer serve that function.
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Affiliation(s)
- D. Kampis
- Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - P. Kármán
- Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - G. Csibra
- Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK
| | - V. Southgate
- Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - M. Hernik
- Department of Psychology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
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12
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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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13
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Gärdenfors P. Primary Cognitive Categories Are Determined by Their Invariances. Front Psychol 2020; 11:584017. [PMID: 33363496 PMCID: PMC7753358 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.584017] [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: 07/16/2020] [Accepted: 11/13/2020] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The world as we perceive it is structured into objects, actions and places that form parts of events. In this article, my aim is to explain why these categories are cognitively primary. From an empiricist and evolutionary standpoint, it is argued that the reduction of the complexity of sensory signals is based on the brain's capacity to identify various types of invariances that are evolutionarily relevant for the activities of the organism. The first aim of the article is to explain why places, object and actions are primary cognitive categories in our constructions of the external world. It is shown that the invariances that determine these categories have their separate characteristics and that they are, by and large, independent of each other. This separation is supported by what is known about the neural mechanisms. The second aim is to show that the category of events can be analyzed as being constituted of the primary categories. The category of numbers is briefly discussed. Some implications for computational models of the categories are also presented.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter Gärdenfors
- Cognitive Science, Department of Philosophy, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.,Faculty of Humanities, Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
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14
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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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15
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Getting a grip on early intention understanding: The role of motor, cognitive, and social factors. PROGRESS IN BRAIN RESEARCH 2020. [PMID: 32859284 DOI: 10.1016/bs.pbr.2020.05.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register]
Abstract
This chapter considers various factors that facilitate infants' understanding of other people's intentions. As adults, we view the actions people perform around us as intentional, to achieve a goal, rather than idle movements. For example, when observing another person perform a simple grasping action, such as picking up a slice of pizza, we perceive this action as goal-directed. Due to our understanding of the person's intention, we focus more so on the relation between the person and their goal, rather than the motion involved in the action. Infants develop an understanding of intentional agents and their goals within the first year of life. This chapter reviews multiple factors that are at play in facilitating infants' learning about the intentions of others' actions. We consider this from various perspectives, including the role of active experience, sensitivity to behavioral cues, cognitive factors, and social factors. We first review evidence concerning infants' learning of intentional actions from active experience. We then go on to evaluate how this learning could also come about via comparison processes, statistical learning, and use of behavioral cues such as object labeling and action effects. We also review social factors such as infant-directed actions and triadic engagement within social interactions that emerging evidence suggests are helpful in facilitating infants' understanding of other people's actions. Finally, we consider the extent to which these factors interact with one another in different contexts, as well as implications and future directions.
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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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Pace A, Levine DF, Golinkoff RM, Carver LJ, Hirsh-Pasek K. Keeping the end in mind: Preliminary brain and behavioral evidence for broad attention to endpoints in pre-linguistic infants. Infant Behav Dev 2020; 58:101425. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101425] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2019] [Revised: 01/31/2020] [Accepted: 02/02/2020] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael C Frank
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, United States.
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