How infants look at others’ manual interactions: The role of experience

Human actions are often embedded in contexts of social interactions. However, just a few studies that have explored the development of infants’ understanding of other people's manual actions do take this variable into account. In this study, 10- and 18-month-old infants were shown three interactive manual actions which the infants could or could not perform themselves. The infants’ gaze shifts to the action target were recorded with an eye tracker. The results indicated that 18-month-old infants look faster to the target than their younger counterparts when they observe actions that they can perform themselves. The results suggest that the infants’ own capacity to perform an action facilitates understanding of the goal of the action in a social interaction.

► We have studied infants’ gaze shifts toward the target of different manual actions in a social interactive context.
► 18-Month-old infants looked faster at the target of some actions than 10-month-olds.
► This difference was only found for the actions in which the 18-month-old group had a superior motor ability.
► Infants’ ability to perform an action could facilitate the identification of the target of this action performed by others.