Sophistication of infants' understanding of collaboration: Active experience shapes infants’ representations of collaborative and non-collaborative contexts

Abstract

Success in our everyday lives relies on our abilities to coordinate with others on some level or another. Research suggests that infants before the age of one are able to engage in collaborative activities, however, less well known is how much infants understand about these collaborative events. The current study addresses how experience shapes infants' representations of goals in collaborative and non-collaborative events. 10-month-old infants participated in a five minute training session that provided active experience engaging in a collaborative task, following the training; infants were assessed using a visual habituation paradigm. Of interest was whether active experience led infants to view the actions of two collaborative partners as being directed towards the attainment of a shared collaborative goal, or that experience simply enhanced infants’ understanding of the means-ends nature of the action sequence. Results suggest that experience supported 10-month-old infants' ability to represent the actions of collaborative partners in terms of a shared goal. Critically, active experience did not lead infants to generalise the goal of the means-ends sequence to individuals who did not perform actions that were critical to the attainment of the goal. Investigating the effects of experience on infants’ understanding of collaboration may reveal how everyday experiences are shaping their understanding.