Infants’ social environment is rich of complex sequences of events and actions. This study investigates whether 12-month-old infants are able to learn statistical regularities from a sequence of human gestures and whether this ability is affected by a social vs non-social context. Using a visual familiarization task, infants were familiarized to a continuous sequence of eight videos in which two women imitated each other performing arm gestures. The sequence of videos in which the two women performed imitative gestures was organized into 4 different gesture units. Videos within a gesture unit had a highly predictable transitional probability, while such transition was less predictable between gesture units. The social context was manipulated varying the mutual gaze of the actors and their body orientation. At test, infants were able to discriminate between the high- and low-predictable gesture units in the social, but not in the non-social condition. Results demonstrate that infants are capable to detect statistical regularities from a sequence of human gestures performed by two different individuals. Moreover, our findings indicate that salient social cues can modulate infants’ ability to extract statistical information from a sequence of gestures.

Quadrelli, E., Monacò, S., Turati, C., Bulf, H. (2020). Social context influences infants’ ability to extract statistical information from a sequence of gestures. INFANT BEHAVIOR & DEVELOPMENT, 61 [10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101506].

Social context influences infants’ ability to extract statistical information from a sequence of gestures

Quadrelli, Ermanno;Turati, Chiara;Bulf, Hermann
2020

Abstract

Infants’ social environment is rich of complex sequences of events and actions. This study investigates whether 12-month-old infants are able to learn statistical regularities from a sequence of human gestures and whether this ability is affected by a social vs non-social context. Using a visual familiarization task, infants were familiarized to a continuous sequence of eight videos in which two women imitated each other performing arm gestures. The sequence of videos in which the two women performed imitative gestures was organized into 4 different gesture units. Videos within a gesture unit had a highly predictable transitional probability, while such transition was less predictable between gesture units. The social context was manipulated varying the mutual gaze of the actors and their body orientation. At test, infants were able to discriminate between the high- and low-predictable gesture units in the social, but not in the non-social condition. Results demonstrate that infants are capable to detect statistical regularities from a sequence of human gestures performed by two different individuals. Moreover, our findings indicate that salient social cues can modulate infants’ ability to extract statistical information from a sequence of gestures.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
Statistical learning, Gestures, Mutual gaze, Social interaction, Infants
English
20-nov-2020
2020
61
101506
reserved
Quadrelli, E., Monacò, S., Turati, C., Bulf, H. (2020). Social context influences infants’ ability to extract statistical information from a sequence of gestures. INFANT BEHAVIOR & DEVELOPMENT, 61 [10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101506].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/295115
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