Kyudai News No26 page 15/28

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Kyudai News No26

Kyudai News No.26 14visual experience in the Shared Experience Phase (p = .986),in the Pointing Phase, infants showed a significant tendencyto point to the object that they did not share with E1.Experiment 2In clear contrast to Experiment 1, the infants initiallypointed to the New to E1 on 51% of all the trials thatincluded pointing on average, which was not significantlydifferent from chance (50%) (p = .937).To sum up, these results suggest that infants’ spontaneouspointing in the current setup has selectivity bias toward Newto E1,when the experimenter might be considered familiarwith one of the objects (as in Experiment 1). However, whenobjects that the infants had not shared with the experimenterappeared behind the experimenter, selective pointing was notobserved (as in Experiment 2). After considering thepossibilities of alternative interpretation, we concluded thatthe difference in pointing behavior observed in Experiment 1most plausibly reflects a shared experience between theinfant and E1, and not with the mother.Discussion and Future PerspectivesThe current study demonstrated that infants in the first halfof their second year have a spontaneous tendency toselectively point to an object that the communication partnermight not know, reflecting a previously shared experience, ina context that lacked a joint-attention frame on the objects’appearance. These results might provide new evidence that apreverbal infant is not only an effective learner, who issensitive to communicative signals of others’ asdemonstrated through the theory of natural pedagogy *6, butis also a flexible participant in communication, that is,he/she may serve as an effective informant. The pointingbehavior observed in the current study might be consideredas a form of informing, which consists of one major part ofaltruistic behavior *7. The adaptive advantage of this patternof behavior might be understandable based on theassumption that indirect reciprocity is rooted from earlychildhood in humans *8 *9. Although the distance between thebehavior of informing about an object’s appearance orlocation and the more formulated and culturally shaped formof teaching and education cannot be underestimated *10, theview of the infant as an “effective informant” might providea perspective worth consideration when attempting to furtherour understanding of the basis of human informationtransmission through communication.PUBLICATIONMeng X, Hashiya K (2014). Pointing Behavior in Infants Reflectsthe Communication PartnerOs Attentional and Knowledge States: APossible Case of Spontaneous Informing. PLOS ONE, 9(9),e107579.REFERENCES*1 Tomasello M (2008) Origins of human communication.Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 57-241.*2 Southgate V, Chevallier C, Csibra G (2010)Seventeen-month-olds appeal to false beliefs to interpretothersO referential communication. Dev Sci 13: 907-912.*3 Liszkowski U, Carpenter M, Tomasello M (2008)Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriatelyfor knowledgeable and ignorant partners. Cogn 108: 732-739.*4 Liebal K, Carpenter M, Tomasello M (2010) InfantsO use ofshared experience in declarative pointing. Infancy 15: 545-556.*5 Fogarty L, Strimling P, Laland KN (2011) The evolution ofteaching. Evol 65: 2760-2770.*6 Csibra G, Gergely G (2009) Natural pedagogy. Trends CognSci 13 (4): 148-153.*7 Warneken F, Tomasello M (2009) The roots of human altruism.Brit J Psychol 100: 455-471.*8 Kato-Shimizu M, Onishi K, Kanazawa T, Hinobayashi T (2013)Preschool childrenOs behavioral tendency toward social indirectreciprocity. PLOS ONE 8: e70915.*9 Meristo M, Surian L (2013) Do infants detect indirectreciprocity? Cogn 129: 102-113.*10 Ando J (2012) On OHomo educansO hypothesis. In: WatanabeS, editor. CARLS series of advanced study of logic andsensibility. Tokyo: Keio University Press. pp. 147-156.Origin ofKazuhideHashiyaAssociate Professor /Developmental psychology Ⅰ,Department of Human SciencesFaculty of Human-EnvironmentStudiesXianwei MengDevelopmental psychology Ⅰ,Graduate School of Human-EnvironmentStudies