Der Einfluss von Handlungseffekten auf die Handlungswahrnehmung und -steuerung im ersten Lebensjahr (English shop)

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Actions play an important role in human interactions. The development of action understanding and of one’s own action execution accordingly represents a significant step for the growing infant. This raises the question of what promotes the early understanding of actions. Salient action effects such as sounds appear to help infants extract the structures of actions and recognise goal-directedness. The present dissertation therefore investigated the influence of action effects on the action perception and action control of infants at the end of the first year of life. It was shown that 12-month-olds grasp the relevant information both when observing the actions of a live model and of a TV model, and use this information for their own actions. In addition, it was demonstrated that infants as young as 9 months are able to relate different actions on objects and the effects (sounds) triggered by them to one another when observing an acting person, and that they accordingly notice a change in these action–effect contingencies. Furthermore, it was shown that 9-month-olds transfer the information about actions and their effects learned through observation into their own actions, using the anticipation of intended action effects for their action control. Overall, the studies of this dissertation demonstrate that infants in the first year of life focus on salient action effects and that these influence their action control.