Precursors to the development of intention at 6 months: Understanding people and their actions

Under investigation was whether 6-month-old infants expect people to behave differently toward persons and inanimate objects. Infants were randomly as signed to experimental and control conditions. In the experimental conditio ns, infants were habituated to an actor who either talked to or reached for and swiped with something hidden behind an occluder. In the test events th e actor was occluded, but the infants were shown either a person or an obje ct. In the control condition, infants only saw the person or object stimulu s. Results showed that infants who had been habituated to an actor who was talking looked longer at the object, and infants who had been habituated to an actor who was reaching and swiping looked longer at the person. No diff erence in looking at the stimuli was observed in the control condition. Thi s suggests that infants expect people's actions to be related to objects in ways that are continuous with more mature, intentional understandings.