Fifty-one 23-to-55-month-old-infants faced two apparatuses that required the use of a rigid (box apparatus) or flexible (hose apparatus) stick-like tool to retrieve a toy stuck inside. Before attempting the extraction, however, they had to pick the only one tool (of three) on display that had the appropriate rigidity/flexibility to be effective.…

Learning to walk leads to an increase in language abilities; however, the underlying mechanisms accounting for this relation remain unclear. Investigating the quality of early gait control may offer some insights. The purpose of this study was to: (1) quantify how 13-month-olds (n = 39; 39% male) and 24-month-olds (n = 39; 59% male) adapt gait…

Evaluating individuals based on their pro- and anti-social behaviors is fundamental to successful human interaction. Recent research suggests that even preverbal infants engage in social evaluation; however, it remains an open question whether infants' judgments are driven uniquely by an analysis of the mental states that motivate others' helpful…

The current practice of preference assessment offers a variety of approaches to determine an individual's preference for specific items. However, the majority of the research has been completed on school-age children or individuals with significant cognitive or behavioral deficits. Further, studies on preference assessments have not adequately…

The social cognition and perception-action literatures are largely separate, both conceptually and empirically. However, both areas of research emphasize infants' emerging abilities to use available information--social and perceptual information, respectively--for making decisions about action. Borrowing methods from both research traditions, this…