10-Month-Olds Visually Anticipate an Outcome Contingent on Their Own Action.

Abstract

It is known that young infants can learn to perform an action that elicits a reinforcer, and that they can visually anticipate a predictable stimulus by looking at its location before it begins. Here, in an investigation of the display of these abilities in tandem, I report that 10-month-olds anticipate a reward stimulus that they generate through their own action: .5 sec before pushing a button to start a video reward, they increase their rate of gaze shifts to the reward location; and during periods of extinction, reward location gaze shifts correlate with bouts of button pushing. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the infants have an expectation of the outcome of their actions: several alternative hypotheses are ruled out by yoked controls. Such an expectation may, however, be procedural, have minimal content, and is not necessarily sufficient to motivate action.