Six-month-old infants rely on explanatory inference when relating communication to people and manipulatory actions to inanimate objects

Six-month-old infants expect people to talk to persons, but they expect people to manipulate objects (M. Legerstee, J. Barna, & C. DiAdamo, 2000). This interpretation of the behavior of 6-month-olds is consistent with both (a) the task requirements in M. Legerstee et al.'s (2000) study and (b) previous empirical and theoretical work that supports the conclusion that infants use explanatory inferences to make sense of the world during the first 6 months of life. The ability to understand that people communicate with persons but act on objects is a precursor to the infant's subsequent understanding that people communicate about objects (intentional communication) at 9-12 months of age. Studies by G. Gergely and his colleagues (Csibra, Gergely, Biro, Koos, & Brockbank, 1999; G. Gergely, Z. Nadasdy, G. Csibra, & S. Biro, 1995) showing that infants attend differently to types of movements of inanimate objects do not shed light on the infant's conceptual understanding of people.

Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Epistemology · Inference · Interpretation (philosophy · Task (project management · Action Observation and Synchronization · Child and Animal Learning Development · Infant Health and Development · Language Development and Disorders · Psychology · Social Psychology

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