Infants' ability to distinguish between purposeful and nonpurposeful behaviors

Prior studies (Gergely et al., 1995; Woodward, 1998) have found that infant s focus on the goals of an action over other details. The current studies t ested whether infants would distinguish between a behavior that seemed to b e goal-directed and one that seemed not to be. Infants in one condition saw an actor grasp one of two toys that sat side by side on a stage, infants i n the other condition saw the actor drop her hand onto one-of the toys in a manner that looked unintentional. Once infants had been habituated to thes e events, they were shown test events in which either the path of motion or the object that was touched had changed. Nine-month-olds differentiated be tween these two actions. When they saw the actor grasp the toy, they looked longer on trials with a change in goal object than on trials with a change in path. When they saw the actor drop her hand onto the toy, they looked e qually at the two test events. These findings did not result from infants b eing more interested in grasping as compared to inert hands. In a second st udy, 5-month-old infants showed patterns similar to those seen in 9-month-o lds. These findings have implications for theories of the development of th e concept of intention. They argue against the claim that infants are innat ely predisposed to interpret any motion of an animate agent as intentional.