Force-related information and exploratory behavior in infancy

Exploratory behavior allows the child to get to know its own possibilities of action in the environment. The aim of this study was to analyze how chil dren explore the sense of force and to know if they a-re able to detect and adjust the forces necessary to perform a pulling task. 30 children between 10 and 24 months of age could activate the lights and music of a doll pull ing from a ring with a certain force specified by the experimenter. Four de creasing ranges of force were used. Results show that all children were abl e to adjust their force to the requirements of the task, but the oldest chi ldren showed more exploratory behavior than the youngest ones. (C) 2000 Els evier Science Inc. All rights reserved.