Ostensive-referential communication is argued to be pivotal for learning in
infancy (Csibra & Gergely, 2009), and even to have a specific effect on what
infants learn about objects. Yoon, Johnson & Csibra (2008) found that after
viewing an ostensive pointing scene (‘Hey baby’, actress pointing to object,
occluder covering object, occluder revealing a change), 9-month-olds
detected object identity changes more than object location changes. But after
viewing a non-ostensive reaching scene, infants detected object location
changes more. These results were interpreted as ostension boosting identity
encoding. However, the relative contribution of ostensive and referential
signals cannot be concluded from this experiment.
In experiment 1, we will conduct a direct replication of the previous study,
comparing ostensive pointing and non-ostensive reaching. In experiment 2,
we will add two new conditions: ostensive reaching and non-ostensive
pointing. Infants will see action videos where an actress performs actions
towards a novel object. We will use an eye-tracker to investigate change
detection (either of object identity or location), as well as where infants are
looking during the action scene. Each infant will see six test scenes: two
action conditions (ostensive reaching, non-ostensive pointing) and three
different outcomes (no change, identity change, location change).
If the effect observed in Yoon’s study is due to ostension boosting object
identity encoding, we will observe both ostensive conditions causing longer
looking times for the object’s identity change. If the effect is due to referentiality boosting object identity encoding, we will see both pointing
conditions causing longer looking times for the identity change. If it is the
combination that drives the effect, we will only see longer looking times for
the identity change in the ostensive pointing condition. Results from this
study will help differentiate the roles of these cues, and how they contribute
to infant learning and memory.