Pointing out new news, old news, and absent referents at 12 months of age

• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00552.x
• Publication Date: 2006-09-25T09:40:40Z
• Authors: Ulf Liszkowski; Malinda Carpenter; Michael Tomasello
• Keywords: Prosocial Behavior

Abstract There is currently controversy over the nature of 1‐year‐olds’ social‐cognitive understanding and motives. In this study we investigated whether 12‐month‐old infants point for others with an their knowledge states a prosocial motive sharing experiences them. Declarative pointing was elicited in four conditions created by crossing two factors: adult partner (1) already attending to target event or not, (2) emoted positively neutrally. Pointing also coded after had ceased. The findings suggest that 12‐month‐olds inform events they do not know about, share attitude about mutually attended can (already prelinguistically) absent referents. These provide strong support mentalistic interpretation infants’ prelinguistic communication.