CHILDRENS USE OF LOOKING BEHAVIOR AS A CUE TO DETECT ANOTHERS GOAL

Three studies Examined children's understanding of the role that looki ng behavior Flays in revealing another's desired goal. Ln each study, participants were asked which of 2 objects a protagonist wanted to obt ain. Four-year-olds did not infer that an object examined via prolonge d looking was more likely to be the protagonist's goal than an object that was either glanced at or inadvertently touched. Instead, they wer e accurate only when the protagonist looked at one of two potential go als. Ln contrast, the majority of 6-year-olds land adults in Experimen t 1) consistently regarded prolonged looking as the more important cue of the protagonist's goal. These age differences suggest that develop ment is characterized by an increasing appreciation that goal is revea led by comparative differences in the quality of perceptual connectedn ess to objects in the world. One explanation for these age differences is that preschoolers are limited in their understanding of the differ ence between perceiving with full attention and without it.