摘要：Objective: The current study examined whether providing both an actor’s eye gaze and emotional expressions can help 10-month-olds interpret a change in the actor’s words as a signal to a change in the actor’s goal object. Methods: Sixteen 10-month-olds participated in an experiment using the violation-of-expectation paradigm and were compared to 16 10-month-olds in a control condition. The infants in the experimental condition were familiarized to an event in which an actor looks at one of two novel objects, excitingly utters a sentence, “Wow, here’s a modi!”, and grasps the object. The procedure in the control condition was identical to that of the experimental condition except that the infants heard the sentence without any emotional excitement and the eye gaze of the agent was hidden by a visor. In the following test trial, the infants in both conditions heard the agent changing her word (from modi to papu) and watched her grasping either the same object as before (old-goal event) or the new object (new-goal event). Results: The infants in the experimental condition looked at the old-goal event longer than at the new-goal event, suggesting that they expected the agent to change her goal object when the actor changed her word. However, the infants in the control condition looked at the two events about equally. Conclusion: When both eye gaze and emotional cues were provided, 10-month-olds were able to exploit the agent’s verbal information when reasoning about whether the agent would pursue the same goal object as before.
