Schlottmann A, Surian L
Department of Psychology, University College London, UK.
Perception. 1999;28(9):1105-13. doi: 10.1068/p281105.
Humans understand mechanical events to involve physical bodies interacting by contact, but intentional events involve agents that can also interact at a distance. We investigated infant sensitivity to causality in a simple event in which one agent appears to react to another without contact. Infants 9 months old were habituated to one of two events involving a computer-animated red square moving nonrigidly--like a caterpillar--towards a green square. In the 'reaction event', the green object moved in turn before the red one stopped, while in the 'pause event' the green object moved after the red one stopped. After habituation, each infant saw the habituation movie played in reverse. This test involved identical spatiotemporal changes for reaction and pause event, but the reversed reaction additionally involved a change in the causal roles. Infants dishabituated to reversal of the reaction but not the pause event, a result which suggests sensitivity to causation-at-a-distance. This ability could support development of social cognition and theory of mind.
人类认为机械事件涉及通过接触相互作用的物理实体，但意向性事件涉及的主体也可以在一定距离外相互作用。我们在一个简单的事件中研究了婴儿对因果关系的敏感性，在这个事件中，一个主体似乎在没有接触的情况下对另一个主体做出反应。9个月大的婴儿对涉及计算机动画红色方块像毛毛虫一样非刚性地向绿色方块移动的两个事件之一进行了习惯化训练。在“反应事件”中，绿色物体在红色物体停止之前依次移动，而在“暂停事件”中，绿色物体在红色物体停止之后移动。习惯化之后，每个婴儿都观看了习惯化影片的倒放。这个测试涉及反应事件和暂停事件相同的时空变化，但倒放的反应事件还涉及因果角色的变化。婴儿对反应事件的倒放表现出去习惯化，而对暂停事件的倒放没有，这一结果表明婴儿对远距离因果关系敏感。这种能力可能有助于社会认知和心理理论的发展。
