Journal
COGNITION
Volume 107, Issue 3, Pages 1059-1069Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2007.10.002
Keywords
goal attribution; biological motion; efficiency; infants
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Funding
- Medical Research Council [G9715587] Funding Source: Medline
- MRC [G9715587] Funding Source: UKRI
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Human infants readily interpret the actions of others in terms of goals, but the origins of this important cognitive skill are keenly debated. We tested whether infants recognize others' actions as goal-directed on the basis of their experience with carrying out and observing goal-directed actions, or whether their perception of a goal-directed action is based on the recognition of a specific event structure. Counterintuitively, but consistent with our prediction, we observed that infants appear to extend goal attribution even to biomechanically impossible actions so long as they are physically efficient, indicating that the notion of 'goal' is unlikely to be derived directly from infants' experience. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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