Infants' Expectations of Third-Party Interactions Based on Observed Similarities

Science Center, Bent Corridor

Are infants able to use various dimensions of similarity to predict others’ social interactions, and do they differentially weigh said cues? Participants were 48 infants between the ages of 8 to 13 months. Infants watched videos involving three experimenters, composed of four familiarization trials and two test trials. There were three conditions: language, preference, and behavior. If infants can comprehend degrees of similarity in others and use that information to predict third party interactions, then they should expect two people who are similar to interact positively. As expected, infants in the language condition looked longer at the dissimilar interaction event. However, in the preference and behavior condition, they looked longer at the similar event. Possible explanations include group membership markers, understandability of context, and competition for limited resources.