ERIC Number: EJ915622
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0885-2014
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Infants' Reasoning about Ambiguous Motion Events: The Role of Spatiotemporal and Dispositional Status Information
Trauble, Birgit; Pauen, Sabina
Cognitive Development, v26 n1 p1-15 Jan-Mar 2011
Two experiments investigate whether 7-month-olds reason about the origin of motion events by considering two sources of causally relevant information: spatiotemporal cues and dispositional status information derived from the identification of an object as either animate (with the enduring causal property of self-initiated motion) or inanimate (requiring an external cause of motion). Infants were shown a ball, a human hand, and an animal engaged in a motion event. While dispositional status information remained constant, spatiotemporal relations varied across conditions. Based on looking time data, we conclude that infants attend flexibly to both types of information. Without spatiotemporal cues, infants rely on dispositional status information. When two objects provide dispositional cues to motion origin, but only one also provides corresponding spatiotemporal information, infants attribute the motion to the object providing both types of information. Given an ambiguous motion event with two dispositional motion originators but no additional spatiotemporal cues, infants may prefer either of the two. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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