Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
J Vis. 2021 May 3;21(5):14. doi: 10.1167/jov.21.5.14.
Adults use distributed cues in the bodies of others to predict and counter their actions. To investigate the development of this ability, we had adults and 6- to 8-year-old children play a competitive game with a confederate who reached toward one of two targets. Child and adult participants, who sat across from the confederate, attempted to beat the confederate to the target by touching it before the confederate did. Adults used cues distributed through the head, shoulders, torso, and arms to predict the reaching actions. Children, in contrast, used cues in the arms and torso, but we did not find any evidence that they could use cues in the head or shoulders to predict the actions. These results provide evidence for a change in the ability to respond rapidly to predictive cues to others' actions from childhood to adulthood. Despite humans' sensitivity to action goals even in infancy, the ability to read cues from the body for action prediction in rapid interactive settings is still developing in children as old as 6 to 8 years of age.
成年人会利用他人身体上分散的线索来预测并反击他们的行为。为了研究这种能力的发展，我们让成年人和 6 至 8 岁的儿童与一个同伙玩一个竞争游戏，该同伙会伸手去够两个目标中的一个。坐在同伙对面的儿童和成年参与者试图在同伙之前触摸目标，从而击败同伙。成年人会利用头部、肩膀、躯干和手臂上分散的线索来预测伸手的动作。相比之下，孩子们只利用手臂和躯干上的线索，但我们没有发现任何证据表明他们可以利用头部或肩膀上的线索来预测动作。这些结果表明，人类对他人行为的预测线索做出快速反应的能力从儿童期到成年期会发生变化。尽管人类在婴儿期就对动作目标很敏感，但在快速互动的环境中，从身体上读取线索来预测动作的能力仍在 6 至 8 岁的儿童中发展。
