The what and the how: Information-seeking pointing gestures facilitate learning labels and functions

Toddlers' prior social experience with speakers influences their word learning

Toddlers prefer to learn from familiar adults, particularly their caregivers, and perform better on word learning tasks when taught by caregivers than by strangers. However, it remains unclear why toddlers learn better from caregivers than from strangers. One possibility is that toddlers are more receptive to learning from individuals whom they have found to be engaging in previous interactions. The current study tested whether toddlers learn more from an unfamiliar adult who was previously engaging than from an unfamiliar adult who was previously unengaging. Toddlers (27-29 months, N = 40) were taught labels for novel objects by two different experimenters. Prior to word learning, toddlers watched pre-recorded videos of one experimenter utilizing engaging behaviors (i.e., using infant-directed speech, gestures, eye contact, and positive affect) and one experimenter utilizing unengaging behaviors (i.e., using adult-directed speech, no gestures, no eye contact, and neutral affect). Both experimenters were equally engaging during labeling. Word learning was then tested using a looking-while-listening paradigm. The results of linear mixed-effects model, cluster-based permutation, and growth curve analyses suggest heightened performance for words that were taught by the experimenter who was previously engaging. These results begin to reveal the kinds of social experiences that promote success in early word learning.

Infant-directed communication: Examining the many dimensions of everyday caregiver-infant interactions

Everyday caregiver-infant interactions are dynamic and multidimensional. However, existing research underestimates the dimensionality of infants' experiences, often focusing on one or two communicative signals (e.g., speech alone, or speech and gesture together). Here, we introduce "infant-directed communication" (IDC): the suite of communicative signals from caregivers to infants including speech, action, gesture, emotion, and touch. We recorded 10 min of at-home play between 44 caregivers and their 18- to 24-month-old infants from predominantly white, middle-class, English-speaking families in the United States. Interactions were coded for five dimensions of IDC as well as infants' gestures and vocalizations. Most caregivers used all five dimensions of IDC throughout the interaction, and these dimensions frequently overlapped. For example, over 60% of the speech that infants heard was accompanied by one or more non-verbal communicative cues. However, we saw marked variation across caregivers in their use of IDC, likely reflecting tailored communication to the behaviors and abilities of their infant. Moreover, caregivers systematically increased the dimensionality of IDC, using more overlapping cues in response to infant gestures and vocalizations, and more IDC with infants who had smaller vocabularies. Understanding how and when caregivers use all five signals-together and separately-in interactions with infants has the potential to redefine how developmental scientists conceive of infants' communicative environments, and enhance our understanding of the relations between caregiver input and early learning. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Infants' everyday interactions with caregivers are dynamic and multimodal, but existing research has underestimated the multidimensionality (i.e., the diversity of simultaneously occurring communicative cues) inherent in infant-directed communication. Over 60% of the speech that infants encounter during at-home, free play interactions overlap with one or more of a variety of non-speech communicative cues. The multidimensionality of caregivers' communicative cues increases in response to infants' gestures and vocalizations, providing new information about how infants' own behaviors shape their input. These findings emphasize the importance of understanding how caregivers use a diverse set of communicative behaviors-both separately and together-during everyday interactions with infants.

A transdisciplinary view on curiosity beyond linguistic humans: animals, infants, and artificial intelligence

Curiosity is a core driver for life-long learning, problem-solving and decision-making. In a broad sense, curiosity is defined as the intrinsically motivated acquisition of novel information. Despite a decades-long history of curiosity research and the earliest human theories arising from studies of laboratory rodents, curiosity has mainly been considered in two camps: 'linguistic human' and 'other'. This is despite psychology being heritable, and there are many continuities in cognitive capacities across the animal kingdom. Boundary-pushing cross-disciplinary debates on curiosity are lacking, and the relative exclusion of pre-linguistic infants and non-human animals has led to a scientific impasse which more broadly impedes the development of artificially intelligent systems modelled on curiosity in natural agents. In this review, we synthesize literature across multiple disciplines that have studied curiosity in non-verbal systems. By highlighting how similar findings have been produced across the separate disciplines of animal behaviour, developmental psychology, neuroscience, and computational cognition, we discuss how this can be used to advance our understanding of curiosity. We propose, for the first time, how features of curiosity could be quantified and therefore studied more operationally across systems: across different species, developmental stages, and natural or artificial agents.

An examination of measures of young children's interest in natural object categories

Developmental research utilizes various different methodologies and measures to study the cognitive development of young children; however, the reliability and validity of such measures have been a critical issue in all areas of research practices. To address this problem, particularly in the area of research on infants' interests, we examined the convergent validity of previously reported measures of children's interests in natural object categories, as indexed by (1) parents' estimation of their child's interest in the categories, (2) extrinsic (overt choices in a task), (3) intrinsic (looking time toward objects), and (4) physiological (pupil dilation) responses to objects of different categories. Additionally, we also examined the discriminant validity of all the aforementioned measures against the well-established and validated measure of parents' estimations of children's vocabulary knowledge. Children completed two tasks: (a) an eye-tracking task, where they were presented with images from a range of defined categories, which collected indices of looking time and pupillary activity; (b) a sticker-choice task, where they were asked to choose between two sticker-images from two different categories belonging to the range of categories assessed in the previous task. Parents completed two questionnaires to estimate (i) their child's interests and (ii) vocabulary knowledge in the categories presented. We first analyzed the discriminant validity between the two parent measures, and found a significant positive association between them. Our successive analyses showed no strong or significant associations between any of our measures, apart from a significant positive association between children's looking time and parents' estimations of children's vocabulary knowledge. From our findings, we conclude that measures of infants' interests thus far may not have sufficient reliability to adequately capture any potential relationship between these measures, or index different components of interest in young children. We suggest next steps for further validation studies in infant research.

The breadth and specificity of 18-month-old's infant-initiated interactions in naturalistic home settings

Infants actively initiate social interactions aiming to elicit different types of responses from other people. This study aimed to document a variety of communicative interactions initiated by 18-month-old Turkish infants from diverse SES (N = 43) with their caregivers in their natural home settings. The infant-initiated interactions such as use of deictic gestures (e.g., pointing, holdouts), action demonstrations, vocalizations, and non-specific play actions were coded from video recordings and classified into two categories as need-based and non-need-based. Need-based interactions were further classified as a) biological (e.g., feeding); b) socio-emotional (e.g., cuddling), and non-need-based interactions (i.e., communicative intentions) were coded as a) expressive, b) requestive; c) information/help-seeking; d) information-giving. Infant-initiated non-need-based (88%) interactions were more prevalent compared to need-based interactions (12%). Among the non-need-based interactions, 50% aimed at expressing or sharing attention or emotion, 26% aimed at requesting an object or an action, and 12% aimed at seeking information or help. Infant-initiated information-giving events were rare. We further investigated the effects of familial SES and infant sex, finding no effect of either on the number of infant-initiated interactions. These findings suggest that at 18 months, infants actively communicate with their social partners to fulfil their need-based and non-need-based motivations using a wide range of verbal and nonverbal behaviors, regardless of their sex and socio-economic background. This study thoroughly characterizes a wide and detailed range of infant-initiated spontaneous communicative bids in hard-to-access contexts (infants' daily lives at home) and with a traditionally underrepresented non-WEIRD population.

Preschoolers ask questions about unknown words on video chat and in live interactions at similar rates

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a major increase in digital interactions in early experience. A crucial question, given expanding virtual platforms, is whether preschoolers' active word learning behaviors extend to their interactions over video chat. When not provided with sufficient information to link new words to meanings, preschoolers drive their word learning by asking questions. In person, 5-year-olds focus their questions on unknown words compared with known words, highlighting their active word learning. Here, we investigated whether preschoolers' question-asking over video chat differs from in-person question-asking. In the study, 5-year-olds were instructed to move toys in response to known and unknown verbs on a video conferencing call (i.e., Zoom). Consistent with in-person results, video chat participants (n = 18) asked more questions about unknown words than about known words. The rate of question-asking about words across video chat and in-person formats did not differ. Differences in the types of questions asked about words indicate, however, that although video chat does not hinder preschoolers' active word learning, the use of video chat may influence how preschoolers request information about words.

Judgments of relevance in preschoolers: a study of training and transfer of self-cueing strategies

Introduction

When facing a task, children must analyze it precisely to fully identify what its goal is. This is particularly difficult for young children, who mainly rely on environmental cues to get there. Research suggests that training children to look for the most relevant perceptual cues is promising. Furthermore, as transferring skills to a new task is difficult, the question of whether young children are able to transfer such training remains open. The aim of this study was to test the extent to which two strategies of goal self-cueing-labeling and pointing-can help 4-year-old children to identify the relevant cues to clearly identify the goal of the task. The effects of explicit strategy training were tested in a near transfer task.

Method

Ninety-nine typically developing 4 year olds took part in the study. They were divided into three groups: two were trained collectively in one of the two strategies and the third group as a control group with no strategy training. All children performed a cued card-sorting task four times: Pre-test, Collective training, Post-test, and Transfer with new cards.

Results

Results confirmed the beneficial effect of strategy training on goal identification, particularly after training (Post-test). In the transfer phase, all three groups performed equally well.

Discussion

This study contributes to our understanding of how young children seek information when they look for the most relevant cues for identifying the goal of a task, and the benefits they may derive in a transfer task. It seems that the use of visual cues and self-cueing strategies helps preschoolers to clearly identify the goal of a task. Results are discussed in the light of the self-regulated learning framework. Some possible classroom applications are suggested.

The role of vision in the acquisition of words: Vocabulary development in blind toddlers

What is vision's role in driving early word production? To answer this, we assessed parent-report vocabulary questionnaires administered to congenitally blind children (N = 40, Mean age = 24 months [R: 7-57 months]) and compared the size and contents of their productive vocabulary to those of a large normative sample of sighted children (N = 6574). We found that on average, blind children showed a roughly half-year vocabulary delay relative to sighted children, amid considerable variability. However, the content of blind and sighted children's vocabulary was statistically indistinguishable in word length, part of speech, semantic category, concreteness, interactiveness, and perceptual modality. At a finer-grained level, we also found that words' perceptual properties intersect with children's perceptual abilities. Our findings suggest that while an absence of visual input may initially make vocabulary development more difficult, the content of the early productive vocabulary is largely resilient to differences in perceptual access. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Infants and toddlers born blind (with no other diagnoses) show a 7.5 month productive vocabulary delay on average, with wide variability. Across the studied age range (7-57 months), vocabulary delays widened with age. Blind and sighted children's early vocabularies contain similar distributions of word lengths, parts of speech, semantic categories, and perceptual modalities. Blind children (but not sighted children) were more likely to say visual words which could also be experienced through other senses.

Relation of infants' and mothers' pointing to infants' vocabulary measured directly and with parental reports

Infants' and parents' pointing gestures predict infants' concurrent and prospective language development. Most studies have measured vocabulary size using parental reports. However, parents tend to underestimate or overestimate infants' vocabulary necessitating the use of direct measures alongside parent reports. The present study examined whether mothers' index-finger pointing, and infants' whole-hand and index-finger pointing at 14 months associate with infants' receptive and expressive vocabulary based on parental reports and directly measured lexical processing efficiency (LPE) concurrently at 14 months and prospectively at 18 months. We used the decorated room paradigm to measure pointing frequency, the Turkish communicative development inventory I to measure infants' receptive vocabulary, Turkish communicative development inventory II to measure their expressive vocabulary, and the Looking-While-Listening (LWL) task to measure LPE. At 14 months, 34 mother-infant dyads, and at 18 months, 30 dyads were included in the analyses. We found that only infants' index-finger pointing frequency at 14 months predicted their LPE (both reaction time and accuracy) prospectively at 18 months but not concurrently at 14 months. Neither maternal pointing nor infants' pointing predicted their receptive and expressive vocabulary based on indirect measurement. The results extend the evidence on the relation between index-finger pointing and language development to a more direct measure of vocabulary.

Multifaceted information-seeking motives in children

From an early age, children need to gather information to learn about their environment. Deciding which knowledge to pursue can be difficult because information can serve several, sometimes competing, purposes. Here, we examine the developmental trajectories of such diverse information-seeking motives. Over five experiments involving 521 children (aged 4-12), we find that school-age children integrate three key factors into their information-seeking choices: whether information reduces uncertainty, is useful in directing action, and is likely to be positive. Choices that likely reveal positive information and are useful for action emerge as early as age 4, followed by choices that reduce uncertainty (at ~age 5). Our results suggest that motives related to usefulness and uncertainty reduction become stronger with age, while the tendency to seek positive news does not show a statistically significant change throughout development. This study reveals how the relative importance of diverging, sometimes conflicting, information-seeking motives emerges throughout development.

Exploring individual differences in infants' looking preferences for impossible events: The Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale

Infants are drawn to events that violate their expectations about the world: they look longer at physically impossible events, such as when a car passes through a wall. Here, we examined whether individual differences in infants' visual preferences for physically impossible events reflect an early form of curiosity, and asked whether caregivers' behaviors, parenting styles, and everyday routines relate to these differences. In Study 1, we presented infants (N = 47, M_age  = 16.83 months, range = 10.29-24.59 months) with events that violated physical principles and closely matched possible events. We measured infants' everyday curiosity and related experiences (i.e., caregiver curiosity-promoting activities) through a newly developed curiosity scale, The Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale (EMCS). Infants' looking preferences for physically impossible events were positively associated with their score on the EMCS, but not their temperament, vocabulary, or caregiver trait curiosity. In Study 2A, we set out to better understand the relation between the EMCS and infants' looking preferences for physically impossible events by assessing the underlying structure of the EMCS with a larger sample of children (N = 211, M_age  = 47.63 months, range = 10.29-78.97 months). An exploratory factor analysis revealed that children's curiosity was comprised four factors: Social Curiosity, Broad Exploration, Persistence, and Information-Seeking. Relatedly, caregiver curiosity-promoting activities were composed of five factors: Flexible Problem-Solving, Cognitive Stimulation, Diverse Daily Activities, Child-Directed Play, and Awe-Inducing Activities. In Study 2B (N = 42 infants from Study 1), we examined which aspects of infant curiosity and caregiver behavior predicted infants' looking preferences using the factor structures of the EMCS. Findings revealed that infants' looking preferences were uniquely related to infants' Broad Exploration and caregivers' Awe-Inducing Activities (e.g., nature walks with infants, museum outings). These exploratory findings indicate that infants' visual preferences for physically impossible events may reflect an early form of curiosity, which is related to the curiosity-stimulating environments provided by caregivers. Moreover, this work offers a new comprehensive tool, the Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale, that can be used to measure both curiosity and factors related to its development, starting in infancy and extending into childhood.

Self-motivated and directed learning across the lifespan

Self-motivated and directed learning is integral to knowledge base expansion for learners of all ages. Both motivational and cognitive processes drive self-motivated and directed lifelong learning, yet how these different processes operate together from childhood through adulthood is largely unknown. In this review, we discuss the role of personal motivators, such as beliefs in self-efficacy and personality traits in self-motivated and directed learning across the lifespan. We then consider the role of cognitive processes that contribute to knowledge base expansion in learners of all ages, specifically executive functions. We focus on working memory, inhibitory control, and task switching as potential determinants of lifelong learning. Finally, we integrate the two literatures, to discuss ways in which personal motivators may influence deployment of executive functions under self-motivated and directed conditions as a learner advances along a developmental trajectory. We also suggest ways to move the study of self-motivated and directed learning beyond observation and self-report measures thus affording experimental control. We aim to provide a more comprehensive understanding and novel insight to the mechanisms and processes of self-motivated and directed learning across the lifespan.

Curiosity as a metacognitive feeling

Curious information-seeking is known to be a key driver for learning, but characterizing this important psychological phenomenon remains a challenge. In this article, we argue that solving this challenge requires qualifying the relationships between metacognition and curiosity. The idea that curiosity is a metacognitive competence has been resisted: researchers have assumed both that young children and non-human animals can be genuinely curious, and that metacognition requires conceptual and culturally situated resources that are unavailable to young children and non-human animals. Here, we argue that this resistance is unwarranted given accumulating evidence that metacognition can be deployed procedurally, and we defend the view that curiosity is a metacognitive feeling. Our metacognitive view singles out two monitoring steps as a triggering condition for curiosity: evaluating one's own informational needs, and predicting the likelihood that explorations of the proximate environment afford significant information gains. We review empirical evidence and computational models of curiosity, and show that they fit well with this metacognitive account, while on the contrary, they remain difficult to explain by a competing account according to which curiosity is a basic attitude of questioning. Finally, we propose a new way to construe the relationships between curiosity and the human-specific communicative practice of questioning, discuss the issue of how children may learn to express their curiosity through interactions with others, and conclude by briefly exploring the implications of our proposal for educational practices.

Developmental Paths of Pointing for Various Motives in Infants with and without Language Delay

Pointing is one of the first conventional means of communication and infants have various motives for engaging in it such as imperative, declarative, or informative. Little is known about the developmental paths of producing and understanding these different motives. In our longitudinal study (N = 58) during the second year of life, we experimentally elicited infants' pointing production and comprehension in various settings and under pragmatically valid conditions. We followed two steps in our analyses and assessed the occurrence of canonical index-finger pointing for different motives and the engagement in an ongoing interaction in pursuit of a joint goal revealed by frequency and multimodal utterances. For understanding the developmental paths, we compared two groups: typically developing infants (TD) and infants who have been assessed as having delayed language development (LD). Results showed that the developmental paths differed according to the various motives. When comparing the two groups, for all motives, LD infants produced index-finger pointing 2 months later than TD infants. For the engagement, although the pattern was less consistent across settings, the frequency of pointing was comparable in both groups, but infants with LD used less canonical forms of pointing and made fewer multimodal contributions than TD children.

Sampling to learn words: Adults and children sample words that reduce referential ambiguity

How do learners gather new information during word learning? One possibility is that learners selectively sample items that help them reduce uncertainty about new word meanings. In a series of cross-situational word learning tasks with adults and children, we manipulated the referential ambiguity of label-object pairs experienced during training and subsequently investigated which words participants chose to sample additional information about. In the first experiment, adult learners chose to receive additional training on object-label associations that reduce referential ambiguity during cross-situational word learning. This ambiguity-reduction strategy was related to improved test performance. In two subsequent experiments, we found that, at least in some contexts, children (3-8 years of age) show a similar preference to seek information about words experienced in ambiguous word learning situations. In Experiment 2, children did not preferentially select object-label associations that remained ambiguous during cross-situational word learning. However, in a third experiment that increased the relative ambiguity of two sets of novel object-label associations, we found evidence that children preferentially make selections that reduce ambiguity about novel word meanings. These results carry implications for understanding how children actively contribute to their own language development by seeking information that supports learning.

Developmental differences in preschoolers' definition assessment and production

Children are able to assess the quality of information presented to them, most notably in the domains of causal explanations and arguments. However, children are also presented with another form of verbal information-definitions. Very little empirical work has investigated how children assess and produce definitions. Two experiments explored preschoolers' comprehension and production of definitions. In Experiment 1, a selective trust paradigm was used to assess 3-year-olds' (n = 28) and 5-year-olds' (n = 28) endorsements of informative and uninformative definitions. Participants were provided with two informants: one who always provided a circular definition (e.g., "Silly means when you are silly") and one who always provided a noncircular definition (e.g., "Silly means when you are goofy"). The 5-year-olds endorsed noncircular definitions over circular definitions for both frequent and infrequent words, but they chose to learn only from informants who provided information about infrequent words. The 3-year-olds, on the other hand, did not systematically endorse either definition type. In Experiment 2, new groups of 3-year-olds (n = 25) and 5-year-olds (n = 24) were asked to provide definitions, and their responses were coded for correctness and circularity. Results demonstrated that 5-year-olds provided more definitions than 3-year-olds. In addition, 5-year-olds provided more noncircular definitions than 3-year-olds for infrequent words but not for frequent words. Together, the results from Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that children's understanding of definitions emerges during the preschool period. This work presents an important first step in addressing an understudied facet of lexical development.

Automated Measures of Force and Motion Can Improve Our Understanding of Infants’ Motor Persistence

Every day, young learners are confronted with challenges. The degree to which they persist in overcoming those challenges, and the different ways they persist, provides critical insights into the various cognitive, motoric, and affective processes that drive behavior. Here, we present a systematic overview of the methodologies that have been traditionally used to study persistence, and offer suggestions for new approaches to the study of persistence that will make strides in moving the field forward. We argue that automated measures of force and motion, which have long been used in the study of infants’ motoric behavior, can provide a means to unravel the psychological processes that guide infants’ trying behavior. To illustrate this, we present a case study that highlights the novel lessons to be learned by the use of automated measures of force and motion regarding infants’ persistence, along with an analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of this approach, as well as detailed instructions for application. In sum, we conclude that these measures, when used in conjunction with more traditional approaches, will provide creative new insights into the nature and development of early persistence.

A World Unto Itself: Human Communication as Active Inference

Recent theoretical work in developmental psychology suggests that humans are predisposed to align their mental states with those of other individuals. One way this manifests is in cooperative communication; that is, intentional communication aimed at aligning individuals' mental states with respect to events in their shared environment. This idea has received strong empirical support. The purpose of this paper is to extend this account by proposing an integrative model of the biobehavioral dynamics of cooperative communication. Our formulation is based on active inference. Active inference suggests that action-perception cycles operate to minimize uncertainty and optimize an individual's internal model of the world. We propose that humans are characterized by an evolved adaptive prior belief that their mental states are aligned with, or similar to, those of conspecifics (i.e., that 'we are the same sort of creature, inhabiting the same sort of niche'). The use of cooperative communication emerges as the principal means to gather evidence for this belief, allowing for the development of a shared narrative that is used to disambiguate interactants' (hidden and inferred) mental states. Thus, by using cooperative communication, individuals effectively attune to a hermeneutic niche composed, in part, of others' mental states; and, reciprocally, attune the niche to their own ends via epistemic niche construction. This means that niche construction enables features of the niche to encode precise, reliable cues about the deontic or shared value of certain action policies (e.g., the utility of using communicative constructions to disambiguate mental states, given expectations about shared prior beliefs). In turn, the alignment of mental states (prior beliefs) enables the emergence of a novel, contextualizing scale of cultural dynamics that encompasses the actions and mental states of the ensemble of interactants and their shared environment. The dynamics of this contextualizing layer of cultural organization feedback, across scales, to constrain the variability of the prior expectations of the individuals who constitute it. Our theory additionally builds upon the active inference literature by introducing a new set of neurobiologically plausible computational hypotheses for cooperative communication. We conclude with directions for future research.