Is Agency Skin Deep? Surface Attributes Influence Infants' Sensitivity to Goal‐Directed Action

Three studies investigated the role of surface attributes in infants' identification of agents, using a habituation paradigm designed to tap infants' interpretation of grasping as goal directed (Woodward, 1998). When they viewed a bare human hand grasping objects, 7‐ and 12‐month‐old infants focused on the relation between the hand and its goal. When the surface properties of the hand were obscured by a glove, however, neither 7‐ nor 12‐month‐old infants represented its actions as goal directed (Study 1). Next, infants were shown that the gloved hands were part of a person either prior to (Study 2) or during (Study 3) the habituation procedure. Infants who actively monitored the gloved person in Study 2 and older infants in Study 3 interpreted the gloved reaches as goal directed. Thus, varying the extent to which an entity is identifiable as a person impacts infants' interpretation of the entity as an agent.     

Infant Brain Responses to Object Weight: Exploring Goal‐Directed Actions and Self‐Experience

Recent work has suggested the value of electroencephalographic (EEG) measures in the study of infants' processing of human action. Studies in this area have investigated desynchronization of the sensorimotor mu rhythm during action execution and action observation in infancy. Untested but critical to theory is whether the mu rhythm shows a differential response to actions which share similar goals but have different motor requirements or sensory outcomes. By varying the invisible property of object weight, we controlled for the abstract goal (reach, grasp, and lift the object), while allowing other aspects of the action to vary. The mu response during 14‐month‐old infants' own executed actions showed a differential hemispheric response between acting on heavier and lighter objects. EEG responses also showed sensitivity to “expected object weight” when infants simply observed an experimenter reach for objects that the infants' prior experience indicated were heavier vs. lighter. Crucially, this neural reactivity was predictive—during the observation of the other reaching toward the object, before lifting occurred. This suggests that infants' own self‐experience with a particular object's weight influences their processing of others' actions on the object, with implications for developmental social‐cognitive neuroscience.     

The Effect of Social Responsiveness on Infants' Object‐Directed Imitation

Previous research has demonstrated that social interactions underlie the development of object‐directed imitation. For example, infants differentially learn object action sequences from a live social partner compared to a social partner over a video monitor; however, what is not well understood is what aspects of social interactions influence social learning. Previous studies have found variable influences of different types of caregiver responsiveness on attention, language, and cognitive development. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how the responsive style of a social partner influenced the learning of object‐directed action sequences. Infants interacted with either a sensitive or redirective experimenter before the learning trial. Results revealed infants changed their patterns of engagement; infants interacting with a sensitive experimenter had longer periods of attentional engagement than infants interacting with a redirective experimenter. Furthermore, during the learning trial, the amount of sensitivity during interaction with the social partner predicted learning scores. These findings suggest that infants' attention is influenced by social partners' interactive style during ongoing interaction, which subsequently affects how infants learn from these social partners.     

Effects of Contingent Reinforcement of Actions on Infants' Object‐Directed Reaching

The role of contingency learning was examined in 3‐month‐old infants' reaching movements. Infants in the experimental group experienced 9 min of active training during which they could move their arms in a reach‐like fashion to pull and move a mobile. Infants in the control group experienced 9 min of passive training during which they watched a mobile move. Prior to (pre‐training) and following the mobile experience (post‐training), infants in both conditions were given an opportunity to interact with a rattle placed within and out of their reach. Compared with infants in the control condition, infants in the experimental condition produced reach‐like movements more frequently during the mobile experience; they also showed a greater increase in reaching attempts from pre‐ to post‐training assessments with the rattle. These findings show that reinforcement of arm extensions and retractions increases the frequency of infants' reaching behaviors. This result suggests that the reinforcement of components of infants' behaviors may contribute to the successful assembly of these behaviors. This process could help keep infants engaged during the lengthy transition from prereaching to independent reaching.     

Six‐Month‐Old Infants Predict Agents’ Goal‐Directed Actions on Occluded Objects

Infants can infer agents’ goals after observing agents’ goal‐directed actions on objects and can subsequently make predictions about how agents will act on objects in the future. We investigated the representations supporting these predictions. We familiarized 6‐month‐old infants to an agent who preferentially reached for one of two featurally distinct objects following a cue. At test, the objects were sequentially occluded from the infant in the agent's presence. We asked whether infants could generate action predictions without visual access to the relevant objects by measuring whether infants shifted their gaze to the location of the agent's hidden goal object following the cue. We also examined what infants represented about the hidden objects by removing one of the occluders to reveal either the original hidden object or the unexpected other object and measuring infants’ looking time. We found that, even without visual access to the objects, infants made predictive gazes to the location of the agent's occluded goal object, but failed to represent the features of either hidden object. These results suggest that infants make goal‐based action predictions when the relevant objects in the scene are occluded, but doing so may come at the expense of maintaining representations of the objects.     

Mothers' Verbal and Nonverbal Strategies in Relation to Infants' Object‐Directed Actions in Real Time and Across the First Three Years in Ethnically Diverse Families

We examined maternal behavioral strategies in relation to infants' object‐directed actions in real time and over developmental time in 206 mother–infant dyads from African American, Dominican immigrant, and Mexican immigrant backgrounds. Mothers were asked to share a set of beads and strings with their infants when children were 14, 24, and 36 months. We coded three types of maternal strategies—eliciting attention, instructive assistance, and encouragement—which could be expressed verbally (e.g., “look”, “turn it”, “good job!”) or physically (i.e., through gestures, hands‐on guidance, or transfer of objects). We also coded infants' unassisted bead‐stringing. Across ethnic groups and ages, mothers' hands‐on guidance and object transfer increased the likelihood that infants would follow with unassisted bead‐stringing during real‐time interaction. Over developmental time, mothers modified their strategies: They displayed fewer attention‐getting strategies and more encouragement across infant ages, and peaked in their provision of instructive assistance when infants were 24 months. Additionally, Mexican mothers displayed more nonverbal strategies (e.g., gestures, hands‐on guidance) than did African American and/or Dominican mothers, who displayed more verbal strategies (e.g., attention‐getting and encouraging language). Developmental and real‐time patterns in mother–infant object‐related interactions generalize across ethnicities, although mothers' emphases on specific strategies are culture specific.     

Infants' Sensitivity to the Depth Cue of Height‐in‐the‐Picture‐Plane

Five‐ and 7‐month‐old infants' sensitivity to the pictorial depth cue of height‐in‐the‐picture‐plane was assessed. Infants were presented with 2 objects, 1 higher than the other, and their reaching was recorded under monocular and binocular viewing conditions. The results showed that both age groups reached significantly more to the lower, apparently closer object under monocular view and that they reached equally to the 2 objects under binocular view. The results suggest that both 5‐ and 7‐month‐old infants are sensitive to the depth information provided by height‐in‐the‐picture‐plane. Demonstration of pictorial depth sensitivity at 5 months has implications for the mechanism underlying the onset of sensitivity to this type of depth information.     

Learning While Babbling: Prelinguistic Object‐Directed Vocalizations Indicate a Readiness to Learn

Two studies illustrate the functional significance of a new category of prelinguistic vocalizing—object‐directed vocalizations (ODVs)—and show that these sounds are connected to learning about words and objects. Experiment 1 tested 12‐month‐old infants’ perceptual learning of objects that elicited ODVs. Fourteen infants’ vocalizations were recorded as they explored novel objects. Infants learned visual features of objects that elicited the most ODVs but not of objects that elicited the fewest vocalizations. Experiment 2 assessed the role of ODVs in learning word–object associations. Forty infants aged 11.5 months played with a novel object and received a label either contingently on an ODV or on a look alone. Only infants who received labels in response to an ODV learned the association. Taken together, the findings suggest that infants’ ODVs signal a state of attention that facilitates learning.     

Infants' Evolving Representations of Object Motion During Occlusion: A Longitudinal Study of 6‐ to 12‐Month‐Old Infants

Infants' ability to track temporarily occluded objects that moved on circular trajectories was investigated in 20 infants using a longitudinal design. They were first seen at 6 months and then every 2nd month until the end of their 1st year. Infants were presented with occlusion events covering 20% of the target's trajectory (effective occlusion interval ranged from 500–4,000 msec). Gaze was measured using an ASL 504 infrared eye‐tracking system. Results effectively demonstrate that infants from 6 months of age can represent the spatiotemporal dynamics of occluded objects. Infants at all ages tested were able to predict, under certain conditions, when and where the object would reappear after occlusion. They moved gaze accurately to the position where the object was going to reappear and scaled their timing to the current occlusion duration. The average rate of predictive gaze crossings increased with occlusion duration. These results are discussed as a 2‐factor process. Successful predictions are dependent on strong representations, themselves dependent on the richness of information available during encoding and graded representations.     

Transfer of Social Learning Across Contexts: Exploring Infants' Attribution of Trait‐Like Emotions to Adults

We explored whether 15‐month‐olds expect another person's emotional disposition to be stable across social situations. In three observation trials, infants watched two adults interact. Half the infants saw one of the adults (“Emoter”) respond negatively to the other adult's actions (Anger group); half saw the Emoter respond neutrally to the same actions (Neutral group). After a change in social context, infants participated in novel tasks with the (now‐neutral) Emoter. Infants in the Anger group were significantly more likely to relinquish desirable toys to the Emoter. We hypothesize that, in the initial observation trials, infants learned that the Emoter was “anger‐prone” and expected her to get angry again in a new social situation. Consequently, infants readily gave the Emoter what she wanted. These findings reveal three key features of infants' affective cognition: (1) infants track adults' emotional history across encounters; (2) infants learn from observing how people interact with others and use this to form expectations about how these people will treat them; and (3) more speculatively, infants use appeasement to cope with social threat. We hypothesize that infants form “trait‐like” attributions about people's emotional dispositions and use this to formulate adaptive responses to adults in novel social contexts.     

Infants' Sensitivity to the Causal Features of Means‐End Support Sequences in Action and Perception

Current work has yielded differential findings regarding infants' ability to perceptually detect the causal structure of a means‐end support sequence. Resolving this debate has important implications for perception‐action dissociations in this domain of object knowledge. In Study 1, 12‐month‐old infants' ability to perceive the causal structure of a cloth‐pulling sequence was assessed via a habituation paradigm. After seeing an event in which a supported toy was moved by pulling a cloth that it sat on, 12‐month‐old infants demonstrated longer looking to events that violated the causal structure of this sequence than to events that preserved the causal structure but varied other perceptual features of the event. Studies 2 and 3 investigated 10‐month‐olds' interpretations of means‐end support sequences using both a habituation paradigm and a task that assessed infants' own means‐end actions. Whereas 10‐month‐olds failed to demonstrate an understanding of the causal structure when tested using a flat cloth as the support (Study 2), sensitivity to this structure was apparent when a rectangular box was the support. These patterns were evident in both action and perception (Study 3). Moreover, individual variation in action task performance was related to visual habituation performance. The results are discussed with respect to the relation between action and perception in infancy.     

Fine‐Grained Analysis of Motionese: Eye Gaze,Object Exchanges,and Action Units in Infant‐Versus Adult‐Directed Action

Mothers modify their actions when demonstrating objects to infants versus adults. Such modifications have been called infant‐directed action (IDA) or motionese (Brand, Baldwin, & Ashburn, 2002). We investigated the IDA features of interactiveness and simplification by quantifying eye gaze, object exchanges, and action units enacted between exchanges in 42 mothers' demonstrations of novel objects to infants (6–8 months or 11–13 months) or adults. We found more eye gaze, more object exchanges, and fewer action types per turn in demonstrations to infants relative to adults. Unlike prior research using global measurements, we detected differences in behavior directed at infants of different ages: Shorter, more frequent gazes and more exchanges characterized demonstrations to older versus younger infants. These findings indicate the fruitfulness of fine‐grained analysis of IDA, and further clarify how adults may support infants' processing of human motion.     

Using Profile Elevation to Increase the Usefulness of the Self‐Directed Search and Other Inventories

The authors explore the construct of profile elevation on interest inventories results. They speak to the need for career counselors to maximize their use of the interest inventory and how they can do that by properly interpreting profile elevation. Profile elevation is defined, and correlates of high and low profile elevation are presented. The common interpretive interaction that occurs between profile elevation and differentiation is explored. The authors also present a case of low profile elevation and the career counseling interventions and considerations used with the client.     

How Routine Patient‐Centered Monitoring Relates to Therapeutic Gains in Family Therapy: A Single‐Case Study

As routine outcome monitoring systems develop, questions emerge about how therapists incorporate feedback into their practice, and how this relates to therapeutic gains. A case of covert grief was monitored in each session with the Personal Questionnaire and the Helpful Aspects of Therapy instruments. At 4 months follow‐up, the Change Interview was administered. Individualized items facilitated access to the private views and needs of each member, which was useful for case formulation and ongoing personalization of the intervention. Qualitative feedback of treatment experiences helped therapists confirm the impacts of interventions, monitor therapeutic alliance, reformulate clinical hypothesis, and plan sessions. Therapists followed a critical triangulation process to decide the clinical meaning of feedback, according to his/her intervention model, expertise, and case‐specific context.     

Young Infants' Performance in the Object‐Variation Version of the Above‐Below Categorization Task: A Result of Perceptual Distraction or Conceptual Limitation?

Five experiments were conducted to examine the performance of young infants on above versus below categorization tasks. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that infants did not form abstract categorical representations for above and below when familiarized with different objects depicted in a constant spatial relation relative to a horizontal bar and tested on a novel object depicted in the familiar and novel spatial relation. Experiments 3 through 5 examined perceptual‐attentional distraction versus conceptually based generalization explanations for young infant performance in the object‐variation version of the above‐below categorization task. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that infants still did not form abstract categorical representations for above and below when object variation was removed from the familiarization trials or when object novelty was reduced during the preference test trials. However, Experiment 5 showed that 3‐ and 4‐month‐olds succeeded on the above versus below categorization task when familiarized with object variation and preference tested with a familiar versus novel object‐bar relation. These results indicate that young infants can form categorical representations for above and below in the object‐variation version of the above‐below categorization task, but that such representations are specific to the particular objects presented. Young infant performance in the object‐variation version of the above‐below categorization task thus reflects a conceptually based generalization limit rather than a problem of perceptual‐attentional distraction.     

How to Deal With Moral Tales: Constructions and Strategies of Single‐Parent Families

This study explored how normative understandings based on the nuclear family ideology are linked to constructions of single‐parent families and sheds light on the strategies single parents and their children adopt in dealing with negative accounts. Guided by social constructionist and configurational approaches, the in‐depth analysis is based on an Austrian qualitative study, comprising interviews with 50 ten‐year‐old children and their 71 parents, living in nuclear, reconstituted, and single‐parent families. The results showed that single‐parent families are constructed predominantly in terms of deficits and disadvantages, with the nuclear family serving as an ideological code along the dimensions of normalcy, complementarity, and stability. To deal with negative accounts, single parents and their children use three basic types of strategy: (a) imitation, (b) compensation, and (c) delimitation.     

“How,of all The Millions of People…”: Re‐Examination of a Question From an Early MRI Research Project

“How, of all the millions of people in the world, did the two of you get together?”, a question to be addressed conjointly to a couple, part of a Structure Family Interview developed during the early heydays of the Mental Research Institute at Palo Alto, California, is analyzed in terms of structure, process and outcome of responses to it, and discussed as a powerful research and clinical tool with current potentials, as it provides in a succinct fashion remarkable insights into a narrative that is constitutive of the couple and, by omission or commission, revealing in terms of the couple's evolution.