Agency cues and 11-month-olds' and adults' anticipation of action goals

•Infants predict the goal of a non-human grasping action when agency cues are present.•Adults predict non-human grasping actions regardless of agency cues.•Infants rapidly learn to predict a grasping action when agency cues are present.•Adults' predictions decelerate across trials when no agency cues are present.•The gaze behavior cannot be explained by mere associative learning.

For the processing of goal-directed actions, some accounts emphasize the importance of experience with the action or the agent. Other accounts stress the importance of agency cues. We investigated the impact of agency cues on 11-month-olds' and adults' goal anticipation for a grasping-action performed by a mechanical claw. With an eyetracker, we measured anticipations in two conditions, where the claw was displayed either with or without agency cues. In two experiments, 11-month-olds were predictive when agency cues were present, but reactive when no agency cues were presented. Adults were predictive in both conditions. Furthermore, 11-month-olds rapidly learned to predict the goal in the agency condition, but not in the mechanical condition. Adults' predictions did not change across trials in the agency condition, but decelerated in the mechanical condition. Thus, agency cues and own action experience are important for infants' and adults' online processing of goal-directed actions by non-human agents.