by Ildikó Rüll, Central European University

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

A study led by researchers from Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, Austria; and the University of St Andrews in Scotland, contributes to the understanding of early cognitive and communicative development in humans, highlighting the sophisticated mental processes infants use to navigate social interactions.

Lead researcher Tibor Tauzin carried out the research while a postdoctoral fellow at the CEU Cognitive Development Center. He is now a postdoctoral researcher of the Babelfisch lab and working at the Department of Linguistics of the University of Vienna.

Together with Principal Investigators Josep Call (University of StAndrews) and Gyorgy Gergely (Central European University), the researchers revealed that 18-month-old infants possess advanced communication skills that allow them to adjust their gestures to be more informative for their partners in communication.

Published in Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science, the study investigated infants' ability to modify their pointing gestures to help others identify desired objects in various contexts.

The research demonstrates that infants as young as 18-months can take into account the mental states of their communicative partners, such as whether the partner has seen the object or has incorrect information about it. When necessary, the infants made their pointing more informative, adjusting their gestures to ensure their partner received the correct information.

The researchers conducted several experiments, placing infants in scenarios where the partner's knowledge about the object locations varied. Results showed that infants provided more precise and effortful pointing when their partner lacked the necessary information or had incorrect information about the object's location.

"Our findings suggest that infants possess a unique cognitive adaptation for early communicative mindreading," said lead researcher Tauzin. "This ability enables infants to take into account the knowledge their communicative partners possess and provide them with relevant information—an essential skill for cooperation and knowledge sharing."

More information: Tibor Tauzin et al, Infants Produce Optimally Informative Points to Satisfy the Epistemic Needs of Their Communicative Partner, Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science (2024). DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00166

Provided by Central European University