Action production influences 12-month-old infants' attention to others' actions

Recent work implicates a link between action control systems and action understanding. In this study, we investigated the role of the motor system in the development of visual anticipation of others actions. Twelve-month-olds engaged in behavioral and observation tasks. Containment activity, infants spontaneous engagement in producing containment actions; and gaze latency, how quickly they shifted gaze to the goal object of anothers containment actions, were measured. Findings revealed a positive relationship: infants who received the behavior task first evidenced a strong correlation between their own actions and their subsequent gaze latency of anothers actions. Learning over the course of trials was not evident. These findings demonstrate a direct influence of the motor system on online visual attention to others actions early in development.