Ágnes Melinda Kovács
Biographic Data
| ID | 1463813 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ágnes Melinda Kovács |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ágnes Melinda |
| FAMILY NAME | Kovács |
| SIGNATURE | KOVÁCS Á M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Central European University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3452-7727 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1960 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Does communication-based belief attribution in 18-month-olds reflect an altercentric bias?
To successfully navigate the social world, young children may need to understand how others form beliefs and how these beliefs guide their behavior. While most studies targeted infants' tracking of others' beliefs based on visual access, it is unclear whether they can track communication-based beliefs. Here, we investigate 18-month-olds' understanding of others' beliefs induced via communication (Experiment 1: N = 34; Experiment 2 - replication: …
Core Intuitions of Psychological Non-Contradiction: Infants Assume That Individual Agents Act and Communicate Coherently
Humans generally posit that contrary mental states are unlikely to co-exist within a single mind. We tested the early ontogeny of this assumption in two domains: action and communication. Studies 1A and 1B tested whether 9-month-old infants assume that agents act coherently. Infants watched interactions between two hands whose owner(s) were invisible. In the contrary goals condition, the hand performed contrary actions—one hand reached for an obj…
Adults Represent Others’ Logical Inferences Even When It Is Unnecessary
Successful social interactions require representing not only what others know, but also what they may deductively infer from evidence. For instance, to help deciding between two alternatives, we may just reveal the incorrect option, expecting others to draw the correct conclusion. Seemingly, we readily track others’ logical inferences if it is necessary for our goals. However, it is currently unknown whether we also track them when we do not have…
Flexible social monitoring as revealed by eye movements: Spontaneous mental state updating triggered by others’ unexpected actions
Successful interactions require not only representing others' mental states but also flexibly updating them, whenever one's original inferences may no longer hold. Such situations arise, for instance, when a partner's behavior is incongruent with one's expectations. Although these situations are rather common, the question whether people update others' mental states spontaneously upon encountering unexpected behaviors and whether they use the upd…
Can 18-Month-Olds Revise Attributed Beliefs
Successful social interactions rely on flexibly tracking and revising others’ beliefs. These can be revised prospectively, new events leading to new beliefs, or retrospectively, when realizing that an attribution may have been incorrect. However, whether infants are capable of such belief revisions is an open question. We tested whether 18-month-olds can revise an attributed FB into a TB when they learn that a person may have witnessed an event t…
Seeing the World From Others’ Perspective: 14-Month-Olds Show Altercentric Modulation Effects by Others’ Beliefs
Humans have a propensity to readily adopt others’ perspective, which often influences their behavior even when it seemingly should not. This altercentric influence has been widely studied in adults, yet we lack an understanding of its ontogenetic origins. The current studies investigated whether 14-month-olds’ search in a box for potential objects is modulated by another person’s belief about the box’s content. We varied the person’s potential be…
Can infants adopt underspecified contents into attributed beliefs? Representational prerequisites of theory of mind
Recent evidence suggests that young infants, as well as nonhuman apes, can anticipate others' behavior based on their false beliefs. While such behaviors have been proposed to be accounted by simple associations between agents, objects, and locations, human adults are undoubtedly endowed with sophisticated theory of mind abilities. For example, they can attribute mental contents about abstract or non-existing entities, or beliefs whose content is…
A Multilab Study of Bilingual Infants: Exploring the Preference for Infant-Directed Speech
From the earliest months of life, infants prefer listening to and learn better from infant-directed speech (IDS) than adult-directed speech (ADS). Yet, IDS differs within communities, across languages, and across cultures, both in form and in prevalence. This large-scale, multi-site study used the diversity of bilingual infant experiences to explore the impact of different types of linguistic experience on infants' IDS preference. As part of the …
The development of gaze following in monolingual and bilingual infants: A multi‐laboratory study
Determining the meanings of words requires language learners to attend to what other people say. However, it behooves a young language learner to simultaneously encode relevant non‐verbal cues, for example, by following the direction of their eye gaze. Sensitivity to cues such as eye gaze might be particularly important for bilingual infants, as they encounter less consistency between words and objects than monolingual infants, and do not always …
Social Media Use Among Olympians and Sport Journalists in Hungary
The Olympic Games are among the most followed events in the world, so athletes who participate there are exceptionally interesting for the media. This research investigated Olympians’ social media use, sport journalists’ attitudes about Olympians’ social media use, and the role of social media in the relationship between Olympians and sport journalists in Hungary. The findings suggest that most Hungarian Olympians do not think that being on socia…
A multi-lab study of bilingual infants: Exploring the preference for infant-directed speech
From the earliest months of life, infants prefer listening to and learn better from infant-directed speech (IDS) than adult-directed speech (ADS). Yet, IDS differs within communities, across languages, and across cultures, both in form and in prevalence. This large-scale, multi-site study used the diversity of bilingual infant experiences to explore the impact of different types of linguistic experience on infants’ IDS preference. As part of the …
How 15‐month‐old infants process morphologically complex forms in an agglutinative language
While phonological development is well‐studied in infants, we know less about morphological development. Previous studies suggest that infants around one year of age can process words analytically (i.e., they can decompose complex forms to a word stem and its affixes) in morphologically simpler languages such as English and French. The current study explored whether 15‐month‐old infants learning Hungarian, a morphologically complex, agglutinative…
Month‐olds anticipate others’ actions based on their belief about an object's identity
Past research has accumulated evidence regarding infants’ false‐belief understanding, measuring their gaze patterns or active helping behaviors. However, the underlying mechanisms are still debated, specifically, whether young infants can compute that others represent the world under a certain aspect. Such performance requires holding in mind two representations about the same object simultaneously and attributing only one to another person. Whil…
The Relation between Olympians and Employees of the Media in Hungary: Motivations, Attitudes, Rejection
In the present study, we examine the relation between Olympians and employees of the media in Hungary through the following terms: motivations, attitudes, and rejection. The empirical research presented in this paper focused on the following research questions: 1.What motivates Olympians and employees of the media in their cooperation? 2. What kind of attitudes characterise them in their relation? 3. Why and how often do employees of the media ge…
Pointing as Epistemic Request: 12‐Month‐olds Point to Receive New Information
Infants start pointing systematically to objects or events around their first birthday. It has been proposed that infants point to an event to share their appreciation of it with others. In this study, we tested another hypothesis, according to which infants’ pointing could also serve as an epistemic request directed to the adult. Thus, infants’ motivation for pointing could include the expectation that adults would provide new information about …
Hierarchical Processing in Seven‐Month‐Old Infants
Hierarchical structures are crucial to many aspects of cognitive processing and especially for language. However, there still is little experimental support for the ability of infants to learn such structures. Here, we show that, with structures simple enough to be processed by various animals, seven‐month‐old infants seem to learn hierarchical relations. Infants were presented with an artificial language composed of “sentences” made of three‐syl…
Extracting Regularities From Noise: Do Infants Encode Patterns Based on Same and Different Relations
A fundamental task of the young learner is to extract adjacent and distant dependency relations from the linguistic signal. Previous research suggests that infants successfully learn regularities from mini-grammars that contain a single consistent pattern. However, outside laboratory infants are exposed to a ‘noisy’ linguistic signal that contains multiple regularities and patterns that infants cannot yet interpret. In four experiments we explore…
The Social Sense: Susceptibility to Others’ Beliefs in Human Infants and Adults
Mind Reading One core component of social cognition, especially of the kind practiced by humans, is the capacity to formulate a representation of what someone else believes to be true, even if that belief is not anchored in reality. Holding two such beliefs in mind—one false and one true—is no simple feat, and up until a few years ago, it was generally accepted that such a capacity did not arise until children were 3 to 4 years old. Since then, a…
Early bilingualism enhances mechanisms of false‐belief reasoning
In their first years, children's understanding of mental states seems to improve dramatically, but the mechanisms underlying these changes are still unclear. Such ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) abilities may arise during development, or have an innate basis, developmental changes reflecting limitations of other abilities involved in ToM tasks (e.g. inhibition). Special circumstances such as early bilingualism may enhance ToM development or other capaciti…
Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants
Children exposed to bilingual input typically learn 2 languages without obvious difficulties. However, it is unclear how preverbal infants cope with the inconsistent input and how bilingualism affects early development. In 3 eye-tracking studies we show that 7-month-old infants, raised with 2 languages from birth, display improved cognitive control abilities compared with matched monolinguals. Whereas both monolinguals and bilinguals learned to r…
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Early bilingualism enhances mechanisms of false‐belief reasoning
In their first years, children's understanding of mental states seems to improve dramatically, but the mechanisms underlying these changes are still unclear. Such ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) abilities may arise during development, or have an innate basis, developmental changes reflecting limitations of other abilities involved in ToM tasks (e.g. inhibition). Special circumstances such as early bilingualism may enhance ToM development or other capaciti…
Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants
Children exposed to bilingual input typically learn 2 languages without obvious difficulties. However, it is unclear how preverbal infants cope with the inconsistent input and how bilingualism affects early development. In 3 eye-tracking studies we show that 7-month-old infants, raised with 2 languages from birth, display improved cognitive control abilities compared with matched monolinguals. Whereas both monolinguals and bilinguals learned to r…
The Social Sense: Susceptibility to Others’ Beliefs in Human Infants and Adults
Mind Reading One core component of social cognition, especially of the kind practiced by humans, is the capacity to formulate a representation of what someone else believes to be true, even if that belief is not anchored in reality. Holding two such beliefs in mind—one false and one true—is no simple feat, and up until a few years ago, it was generally accepted that such a capacity did not arise until children were 3 to 4 years old. Since then, a…
Pointing as Epistemic Request: 12‐Month‐olds Point to Receive New Information
Infants start pointing systematically to objects or events around their first birthday. It has been proposed that infants point to an event to share their appreciation of it with others. In this study, we tested another hypothesis, according to which infants’ pointing could also serve as an epistemic request directed to the adult. Thus, infants’ motivation for pointing could include the expectation that adults would provide new information about …
Hierarchical Processing in Seven‐Month‐Old Infants
Hierarchical structures are crucial to many aspects of cognitive processing and especially for language. However, there still is little experimental support for the ability of infants to learn such structures. Here, we show that, with structures simple enough to be processed by various animals, seven‐month‐old infants seem to learn hierarchical relations. Infants were presented with an artificial language composed of “sentences” made of three‐syl…
Extracting Regularities From Noise: Do Infants Encode Patterns Based on Same and Different Relations
A fundamental task of the young learner is to extract adjacent and distant dependency relations from the linguistic signal. Previous research suggests that infants successfully learn regularities from mini-grammars that contain a single consistent pattern. However, outside laboratory infants are exposed to a ‘noisy’ linguistic signal that contains multiple regularities and patterns that infants cannot yet interpret. In four experiments we explore…
The Relation between Olympians and Employees of the Media in Hungary: Motivations, Attitudes, Rejection
In the present study, we examine the relation between Olympians and employees of the media in Hungary through the following terms: motivations, attitudes, and rejection. The empirical research presented in this paper focused on the following research questions: 1.What motivates Olympians and employees of the media in their cooperation? 2. What kind of attitudes characterise them in their relation? 3. Why and how often do employees of the media ge…
Month‐olds anticipate others’ actions based on their belief about an object's identity
Past research has accumulated evidence regarding infants’ false‐belief understanding, measuring their gaze patterns or active helping behaviors. However, the underlying mechanisms are still debated, specifically, whether young infants can compute that others represent the world under a certain aspect. Such performance requires holding in mind two representations about the same object simultaneously and attributing only one to another person. Whil…
Social Media Use Among Olympians and Sport Journalists in Hungary
The Olympic Games are among the most followed events in the world, so athletes who participate there are exceptionally interesting for the media. This research investigated Olympians’ social media use, sport journalists’ attitudes about Olympians’ social media use, and the role of social media in the relationship between Olympians and sport journalists in Hungary. The findings suggest that most Hungarian Olympians do not think that being on socia…
A multi-lab study of bilingual infants: Exploring the preference for infant-directed speech
From the earliest months of life, infants prefer listening to and learn better from infant-directed speech (IDS) than adult-directed speech (ADS). Yet, IDS differs within communities, across languages, and across cultures, both in form and in prevalence. This large-scale, multi-site study used the diversity of bilingual infant experiences to explore the impact of different types of linguistic experience on infants’ IDS preference. As part of the …
How 15‐month‐old infants process morphologically complex forms in an agglutinative language
While phonological development is well‐studied in infants, we know less about morphological development. Previous studies suggest that infants around one year of age can process words analytically (i.e., they can decompose complex forms to a word stem and its affixes) in morphologically simpler languages such as English and French. The current study explored whether 15‐month‐old infants learning Hungarian, a morphologically complex, agglutinative…
Seeing the World From Others’ Perspective: 14-Month-Olds Show Altercentric Modulation Effects by Others’ Beliefs
Humans have a propensity to readily adopt others’ perspective, which often influences their behavior even when it seemingly should not. This altercentric influence has been widely studied in adults, yet we lack an understanding of its ontogenetic origins. The current studies investigated whether 14-month-olds’ search in a box for potential objects is modulated by another person’s belief about the box’s content. We varied the person’s potential be…
Can infants adopt underspecified contents into attributed beliefs? Representational prerequisites of theory of mind
Recent evidence suggests that young infants, as well as nonhuman apes, can anticipate others' behavior based on their false beliefs. While such behaviors have been proposed to be accounted by simple associations between agents, objects, and locations, human adults are undoubtedly endowed with sophisticated theory of mind abilities. For example, they can attribute mental contents about abstract or non-existing entities, or beliefs whose content is…
A Multilab Study of Bilingual Infants: Exploring the Preference for Infant-Directed Speech
From the earliest months of life, infants prefer listening to and learn better from infant-directed speech (IDS) than adult-directed speech (ADS). Yet, IDS differs within communities, across languages, and across cultures, both in form and in prevalence. This large-scale, multi-site study used the diversity of bilingual infant experiences to explore the impact of different types of linguistic experience on infants' IDS preference. As part of the …
The development of gaze following in monolingual and bilingual infants: A multi‐laboratory study
Determining the meanings of words requires language learners to attend to what other people say. However, it behooves a young language learner to simultaneously encode relevant non‐verbal cues, for example, by following the direction of their eye gaze. Sensitivity to cues such as eye gaze might be particularly important for bilingual infants, as they encounter less consistency between words and objects than monolingual infants, and do not always …
Can 18-Month-Olds Revise Attributed Beliefs
Successful social interactions rely on flexibly tracking and revising others’ beliefs. These can be revised prospectively, new events leading to new beliefs, or retrospectively, when realizing that an attribution may have been incorrect. However, whether infants are capable of such belief revisions is an open question. We tested whether 18-month-olds can revise an attributed FB into a TB when they learn that a person may have witnessed an event t…
Flexible social monitoring as revealed by eye movements: Spontaneous mental state updating triggered by others’ unexpected actions
Successful interactions require not only representing others' mental states but also flexibly updating them, whenever one's original inferences may no longer hold. Such situations arise, for instance, when a partner's behavior is incongruent with one's expectations. Although these situations are rather common, the question whether people update others' mental states spontaneously upon encountering unexpected behaviors and whether they use the upd…
Adults Represent Others’ Logical Inferences Even When It Is Unnecessary
Successful social interactions require representing not only what others know, but also what they may deductively infer from evidence. For instance, to help deciding between two alternatives, we may just reveal the incorrect option, expecting others to draw the correct conclusion. Seemingly, we readily track others’ logical inferences if it is necessary for our goals. However, it is currently unknown whether we also track them when we do not have…
Does communication-based belief attribution in 18-month-olds reflect an altercentric bias?
To successfully navigate the social world, young children may need to understand how others form beliefs and how these beliefs guide their behavior. While most studies targeted infants' tracking of others' beliefs based on visual access, it is unclear whether they can track communication-based beliefs. Here, we investigate 18-month-olds' understanding of others' beliefs induced via communication (Experiment 1: N = 34; Experiment 2 - replication: …
Core Intuitions of Psychological Non-Contradiction: Infants Assume That Individual Agents Act and Communicate Coherently
Humans generally posit that contrary mental states are unlikely to co-exist within a single mind. We tested the early ontogeny of this assumption in two domains: action and communication. Studies 1A and 1B tested whether 9-month-old infants assume that agents act coherently. Infants watched interactions between two hands whose owner(s) were invisible. In the contrary goals condition, the hand performed contrary actions—one hand reached for an obj…
Psychology (17 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (14 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Developmental psychology (12 works) · Cognitive psychology (10 works) · Language Development and Disorders (9 works) · Cognition (8 works) · Linguistics (7 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Artificial Intelligence (5 works)