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Reference and attitude in infant pointing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2007

ULF LISZKOWSKI ,
MALINDA CARPENTER  and
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
ULF LISZKOWSKI
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Leipzig, Germany
MALINDA CARPENTER
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Leipzig, Germany
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Leipzig, Germany
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Abstract

We investigated two main components of infant declarative pointing, reference and attitude, in two experiments with a total of 106 preverbal infants at 1;0. When an experimenter (E) responded to the declarative pointing of these infants by attending to an incorrect referent (with positive attitude), infants repeated pointing within trials to redirect E’s attention, showing an understanding of E’s reference and active message repair. In contrast, when E identified infants’ referent correctly but displayed a disinterested attitude, infants did not repeat pointing within trials and pointed overall in fewer trials, showing an understanding of E’s unenthusiastic attitude about the referent. When E attended to infants’ intended referent AND shared interest in it, infants were most satisfied, showing no message repair within trials and pointing overall in more trials. These results suggest that by twelve months of age infant declarative pointing is a full communicative act aimed at sharing with others both attention to a referent and a specific attitude about that referent.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , February 2007 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
2007 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Thanks to Konstanze Albrecht for coding and helping with the data collection and to anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a previous version.