Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2018 Sep;173:268-283. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.04.011. Epub 2018 May 14.
Speech allows humans to communicate and to navigate the social world. By 12 months, infants recognize that speech elicits appropriate responses from others. However, it is unclear how infants process dynamic communicative scenes and how their processing abilities compare with those of adults. Do infants, like adults, process communicative events while the event is occurring or only after being presented with the outcome? We examined 12-month-olds' and adults' eye movements as they watched a Communicator grasp one (target) of two objects. During the test event, the Communicator could no longer reach the objects, so she spoke or coughed to a Listener, who selected either object. Infants' and adults' patterns of looking to the actors and objects revealed that both groups immediately evaluated the Communicator's speech, but not her cough, as communicative and recognized that the Listener should select the target object only when the Communicator spoke. Furthermore, infants and adults shifted their attention between the actors and the objects in very similar ways. This suggests that 12-month-olds can quickly process communicative events as they occur with adult-like accuracy. However, differences in looking reveal that 12-month-olds process slower than adults. This early developing processing ability may allow infants to learn language and acquire knowledge from communicative interactions.
言语使人类能够进行交流并驾驭社交世界。到 12 个月大时，婴儿就能意识到言语会引发他人的相应反应。然而，目前尚不清楚婴儿如何处理动态交际场景，以及他们的处理能力与成年人相比如何。婴儿是否像成年人一样，在事件发生时处理交际事件，还是仅在呈现结果后才进行处理？我们观察了 12 个月大的婴儿和成年人在观看交际者抓取两个物体中的一个（目标）时的眼动。在测试事件中，交际者无法再够到物体，因此她向听者说话或咳嗽，听者选择其中一个物体。婴儿和成年人注视演员和物体的模式表明，两组人都立即将交际者的言语评估为交际行为，但不会将她的咳嗽评估为交际行为，并意识到只有当交际者说话时，听者才应该选择目标物体。此外，婴儿和成年人以非常相似的方式在演员和物体之间转移注意力。这表明 12 个月大的婴儿可以像成年人一样准确地快速处理正在发生的交际事件。然而，在注视方面的差异表明，12 个月大的婴儿的处理速度比成年人慢。这种早期发展的处理能力可能使婴儿能够从交际互动中学习语言并获取知识。
