ABSTRACT

Fifty-one 23-to-55-month-old-infants faced two apparatuses that required the use of a rigid (box apparatus) or flexible (hose apparatus) stick-like tool to retrieve a toy stuck inside. Before attempting the extraction, however, they had to pick the only one tool (of three) on display that had the appropriate rigidity/flexibility to be effective. To inform their decisions, they could either manipulate the three tools themselves (haptic information) or observe the experimenter bending and unbending them for just five seconds each (visual information) before selection. Children found more difficulties in selecting appropriate flexible tools, as compared to rigid ones. Moreover, infants’ own haptic inspection of each tool did not significantly improve their selection accuracy, which indicates that observing the experimenter’s demonstration conveyed all the information required to make correct choices.

摘要

51 名 23 至 55 个月大的婴儿面临两种装置，需要使用刚性（盒式装置）或柔性（软管装置）棒状工具来取回卡在里面的玩具。然而，在尝试提取之前，他们必须选择展出的唯一一种（三种）具有适当刚性/柔韧性的工具才能有效。为了告知他们的决定，他们可以自己操纵这三种工具（触觉信息），或者在选择前观察实验者弯曲和伸直它们仅五秒钟（视觉信息）。与刚性工具相比，儿童在选择合适的灵活工具方面发现更多困难。此外，婴儿自己对每种工具的触觉检查并没有显着提高他们的选择准确性，