The Use of Social Cues by 9-month-olds in the A-not-B Search Task

• In Event: 2-029 - Effects of Motor Imitation and Social Cues on A-not-B Task Performance in Infants and Toddlers

Integrative Statement

Different measures suggest different conclusions regarding the origins of object permanence. Violation-of-expectation measures suggest that young infants have an understanding of object permanence (e.g., Baillargeon, 1987). Manual search tasks, however, do not reveal an understanding of object permanence in 9-month-olds (Piaget, 1954). We used a new measure to reveal infants’ expectations about the location of occluded objects during manual search in the traditional Piagetian A-not-B task; i.e., social looking to the experimenter after uncovering a location (Dunn & Bremner, 2016; Walden et al., 2007). Further, we assessed how social cues given by the experimenter would affect both search and social looking. Under the assumption that infants assume adults are helpful (Topál et al., 2008), we predicted that if infants use social cues, then cues to the incorrect location should increase social looking and decrease search accuracy relative to cues to the correct location.

Forty-eight 9-month-old infants were assigned to one of three conditions; a) standard, b) congruent social cues and c) incongruent social cues. A toy was repeatedly hidden at location A (five trials) with social cues remaining neutral in all conditions. On subsequent B trials (three to four trials depending on the child), the object was hidden in at location B whilst experimenter eye gaze cues during the 5-second delay period either a) remained neutral b) directed towards the accurate, B location or c) directed towards the inaccurate, A location.

Findings are summarized in Table 1. As predicted, in both the standard and incongruent social cue conditions, infants made significantly more errors on B trials than A trials, while in the congruent social cue condition, B trial error rates fell to at-chance level. Error run analysis (Butterworth, 1977) showed that the number of B trial errors before a correct reach was significantly shorter in the congruent condition than in the standard and incongruent cue conditions, suggesting reaching was not random. Also as predicted, Figure 2 shows that significantly more social looking occurred following inaccurate reaches on B trials in the standard and incongruent than the congruent social cue conditions. In addition, significantly more social looking occurred following accurate reaches in the incongruent condition than either the standard or congruent social cue conditions.

These results show a clear effect of social cues on infant search and social behaviour. Infants made fewest errors in the presence of congruent social cues and showed most social looking in the presence of incongruent social cues. Higher social looking when the researcher had looked to A than when neutral cues are given indicates that infants have a stronger expectation for the object to be found at A in the incongruent condition than the standard condition.

Summary: Social looking provides a useful measure of infant expectations during search tasks. These results expand Topál et al.’s (2008) account that the A-not-B error results from a pragmatic misinterpretation of ambiguous social cues given by the experimenter during hiding at A, to include use of subtle yet even more powerful eye-gaze cues during the delay period.

Authors

• Kirsty J. Dunn, Psychology Department Lancaster University
  Presenting Author

• J. Gavin Bremner, Lancaster University
  Non-Presenting Author