Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Október 6. u. 7, Budapest, 1051, Hungary.
Sci Rep. 2021 Sep 14;11(1):18217. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-97811-5.
Goal-directed social interactions (whether instrumental or communicative) involve co-dependent, partially predictable actions of interacting agents as social goals cannot be achieved by continuously exchanging the same, perfectly predictable, or completely random behaviors. We investigated whether 10-month-olds are sensitive to the co-dependence and degree of predictability in an interactive context where unfamiliar entities exchanged either perfectly predictable (identical), partially predictable (co-dependent), or non-predictable (random) signal sequences. We found that when-following the interactive exchanges-one of the entities turned in the direction of one of two lateral target objects, infants looked more at the indicated referent, but only in the partially predictable signals condition. This shows that infants attributed agency to the orienting entity and interpreted its turning action as a referential object-directed action. The present findings suggest that the co-dependency and partial predictability of exchanged behaviors can serve as an abstract structural cue to attribute intentional agency and recognize goal-directed social interactions.
目标导向的社会互动（无论是工具性的还是交际性的）涉及到相互作用的主体的相互依存、部分可预测的行动，因为社会目标不能通过不断交换相同的、完全可预测的或完全随机的行为来实现。我们研究了 10 个月大的婴儿是否对互动环境中相互依存和可预测程度敏感，在这种环境中，不熟悉的实体交换的是完全可预测的（相同的）、部分可预测的（相互依存的）还是不可预测的（随机的）信号序列。我们发现，当跟随互动交换时，如果其中一个实体朝着两个横向目标物体中的一个方向转动，婴儿会更多地看指示的参照对象，但仅在部分可预测的信号条件下。这表明，婴儿将能动性归因于定向实体，并将其转向动作解释为指向参照对象的动作。本研究结果表明，行为的相互依存和部分可预测性可以作为一种抽象的结构线索，用于归因于有意的能动性并识别目标导向的社会互动。
