Infants get five stars on iconic memory tests: a partial-report test of 6-month-old infants' iconic memory capacity.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Blaser E
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4578158 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Infants get five stars on iconic memory tests: a partial-report test of 6-month-old infants' iconic memory capacity.
Psychological science 20101005 11
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Project description:Collaborative activities in which individuals coordinate their actions to attain a common goal play a fundamental role in our everyday lives. Evidence suggests that infants engage in collaborative activities before their first birthday, however little is known about infants' understanding of collaborative action. Using a visual habituation paradigm, this research consists of two experiments designed to investigate whether 10-month-olds understand that the actions of collaborative partners are critical to the attainment of a common goal. The results of Experiment 1 suggest that 10-month-olds represent the actions of collaborating partners in terms of a common collaborative goal only after receiving active experience with a collaborative activity. Experiment 2 demonstrated that infants who received active experience with a collaborative activity viewed active engagement in a collaboration as being critical for an individual's actions to be interpreted as being directed towards a collaborative goal. Together, these findings demonstrate that 10-month-olds exhibit an understanding of the shared nature of collaborative goals after a highly salient experience with the activity. Identifying the effects of experience on infants' understanding of collaborative goals in a laboratory context provides insights into the role that experiences in their everyday lives might play in their understanding of collaboration.
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