Emergentist Semantics Group, Bielefeld University, Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Universitätsstrasse 21–23, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
Dev Sci. 2012 May;15(3):426-35. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01139.x. Epub 2012 Feb 29.
Pointing, like eye gaze, is a deictic gesture that can be used to orient the attention of another person towards an object or an event. Previous research suggests that infants first begin to follow a pointing gesture between 10 and 13 months of age. We investigated whether sensitivity to pointing could be seen at younger ages employing a technique recently used to show early sensitivity to perceived eye gaze. Three experiments were conducted with 4.5- and 6.5-month-old infants. Our first goal was to examine whether these infants could show a systematic response to pointing by shifting their visual attention in the direction of a pointing gesture when we eliminated the difficulty of disengaging fixation from a pointing hand. The results from Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that a dynamic, but not a static, pointing gesture triggers shifts of visual attention in infants as young as 4.5 months of age. Our second goal was to clarify whether this response was based on sensitivity to the directional posture of the pointing hand, the motion of the pointing hand, or both. The results from Experiment 3 suggest that the direction of motion is necessary but not sufficient to orient infants' attention toward a distal target. Infants shifted their attention in the direction of the pointing finger, but only when the hand was moving in the same direction. These results suggest that infants are prepared to orient to the distal referent of a pointing gesture which likely contributes to their learning the communicative function of pointing.
指点就像眼神注视一样，是一种指示性的手势，可以用来引导另一个人注意某个物体或事件。先前的研究表明，婴儿在 10 到 13 个月大时开始首次跟随指点手势。我们通过使用一种最近用于展示对感知眼神注视的早期敏感性的技术来研究是否可以在更小的年龄看到对指点的敏感性。进行了三个实验，实验对象为 4.5 个月和 6.5 个月大的婴儿。我们的第一个目标是检验这些婴儿是否可以通过在消除从指点手转移注视的困难的情况下，通过将视觉注意力转移到指点手势的方向上来对指点做出系统的反应。实验 1 和 2 的结果表明，即使是动态的指点手势也会引发 4.5 个月大的婴儿的视觉注意力转移。我们的第二个目标是澄清这种反应是基于对手指点姿势的敏感性、指点手的运动还是两者兼而有之。实验 3 的结果表明，运动方向是引导婴儿注意力朝向远端目标所必需的，但不是充分的条件。婴儿会将注意力转移到指点手指的方向，但前提是手朝着相同的方向移动。这些结果表明，婴儿准备好将注意力集中在指点手势的远端参照上，这可能有助于他们学习指点的交际功能。
