Infants are attentive to third‐party interactions, but the underlying mechanisms of this preference remain understudied. This study examined whether 13‐month‐old infants (N = 32) selectively learn cue–target associations guiding them to videos depicting a social interaction scene. In a visual learning task, two geometrical shapes were repeatedly paired with two kinds of target videos: two adults interacting with one another (social interaction) or the same adults acting individually (non‐interactive control). Infants performed faster saccadic latencies and more predictive gaze shifts toward the cued target region during social interaction trials. These findings suggest that social interaction targets can serve as primary reinforcers in an associative learning task, supporting the view that infants find it intrinsically valuable to observe others’ interactions.

中文翻译：

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社交互动目标增强 13 个月大婴儿的联想学习

婴儿会注意第三方的互动，但这种偏好的潜在机制仍未得到充分研究。本研究检查了 13 个月大的婴儿 ( N = 32）有选择地学习线索-目标关联，引导他们观看描述社交互动场景的视频。在视觉学习任务中，两个几何形状与两种目标视频重复配对：两个成年人彼此互动（社交互动）或同一个成年人单独行动（非互动控制）。在社交互动试验期间，婴儿执行更快的扫视延迟和更具预测性的凝视转向提示目标区域。这些发现表明，社交互动目标可以作为联想学习任务的主要强化物，支持婴儿发现观察他人互动具有内在价值的观点。