Infants' goal-directed interpretation of direct approaches of human and non-human agents: Challenging adult intuition

Recent research suggests that infants are not able to generate goal-directed expectations if the agent's behavior is non-efficient toward its outcome (Hernik & Southgate, 2012; Biro et al., 2011). These findings drew attention to the ambiguity of goal-directed interpretation of direct approaches which, albeit efficient, do not provide direct evidence for efficient adjustments. Our study investigated 9-month-old infants' expectations about the future behavior of agents (human or non-human) who engaged in a direct approach toward an object. We found that neither a direct reach-and-grasp of a human hand nor a straight-line approach of a self-propelled ball allowed infants to generate expectations for an efficiently adjusted behavior of the agent toward the goal in a new situation. When, however, the direct approach was accompanied by contextual cues (multiple target objects were present), infants expected the hand to be able to adjust its path to achieve the same goal. The self-propelled non-human agent generated such an expectation only when evidence for the adjustability of its path was also provided. Taken together, in the case of direct approaches, prior knowledge about the adjustability of the actor's movement is not sufficient for goal-directed interpretation of the action and generating specific expectations in a new situation. The implications of these findings for the teleological stance theory and early processes of social learning are discussed.