HOW INFANTS PERCEIVE A SIMPLE CAUSAL EVENT

Four experiments examined 10-month-old infants' causal event perception. Experiment 1 replicated previous studies except that the specific objects used as agent and recipient varied from trial to trial. Under these conditions infants did not process the causality. Instead they keyed on specific temporal and spatial differences among the events. Experiment 2 showed that infants notice a change in the particular agent performing either a causal or noncausal action. Experiment 3 showed that infants do not notice a change in the type of action done to a particular recipient. Experiment 4 demonstrated that infants do pay attention to the object used as a recipient. As a whole, the results indicate that 10-month-old infants perceive the causality of simple events by associating a specific agent with the causal action. These results provide more support for an information-processing view than for the view that infants have a causal module.