Can a Self-Propelled Box Have a Goal?

Luo, Yuyan; Baillargeon, Renée

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01582.x

Cited by 355 publications

(440 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…A typical goal-directed scenario involves an animal taking a path toward an object and at its end interacting with it. However, 5-month-olds also interpret inanimate objects as goal-directed if they start by themselves (Luo and Baillargeon 2005a), suggesting that the first concept of goal is not derived from animals acting but rather from a set of spatial primitives involving START PATH, END OF PATH, and LINK (Mandler 2008). LINK means interaction, and if, for example, a person merely rests the back of their hand on an object, infants do not treat it as a goal (Woodward 1999).…”

Section: Spatial Primitives and Some Early Concepts Constructed From mentioning

confidence: 99%

The spatial foundations of the conceptual system

Mandler

2010

Lang Cognition

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This article proposes that the representation of concepts in infancy is in the form of spatial image-schemas. A mechanism that simplifies spatial information is described along with a small set of spatial primitives that are sufficient to account for the conceptualizations that preverbal infants use to interpret objects and events. This early system is important to understand because it organizes the adult conceptual system of objects and events and remains its core. With development, the system becomes enriched by language in several ways, and also by means of analogical extension to nonspatial information. Nonspatial bodily information, such as feelings of force and motor activity, is also added, but remains secondary. It becomes associated with spatial representations, but except for its spatial aspects is represented in a more inchoate and less accessible fashion.

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Section: Spatial Primitives and Some Early Concepts Constructed From mentioning

confidence: 99%

The spatial foundations of the conceptual system

Mandler

2010

Lang Cognition

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“…Abilities attributed to agents (but not to objects or physical forces) include the ability to engage in self-generated movement [4,[68][69], the ability to resist gravity [70], the ability to cause objects to move or change state [71][72], the ability to create order [73], the ability to generate patterns [74], and the ability to spontaneously and non-deterministically cause changes in the world [75][76].…”

Section: Goal-directed Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Work on how children reason about other agents' goals [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], desires [9][10][11], beliefs [12][13][14][15][16][17][18], and pro-social behavior [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] has advanced our understanding of what in our commonsense psychology is at work in early infancy [30][31][32] and what develops [16][17][33][34][35]. Nonetheless, major theoretical questions remain unresolved.…”

Section: Commonsense Psychologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Naïve Utility Calculus: Computational Principles Underlying Commonsense Psychology

Jara‐Ettinger¹,

Gweon²,

Schulz³

et al. 2016

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

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We propose that human social cognition is structured around a basic understanding of ourselves and others as intuitive utility maximizers: From a young age, humans implicitly assume that agents choose goals and actions to maximize the rewards they expect to obtain relative to the costs they expect to incur. This "naïve utility calculus" lets both children and adults observe others' behavior and infer their beliefs and desires, their longer-term knowledge and preferences, and even their character: who is knowledgeable or competent, who is praiseworthy or blameworthy, who is friendly, indifferent or an enemy. We review studies providing support for the naïve utility calculus, and we show how it captures much of the rich social reasoning humans engage in from infancy. Commonsense PsychologyTheories of decision-making have been at the heart of psychology since the field's inception, but only recently has the field turned to the study of how humans -especially the youngest humansthink humans make decisions. When we watch someone make a choice, we explain it in terms of their goals, preferences, personalities, and moral beliefs. This capacity -our commonsense psychology -is the cognitive foundation of human society. It lets us share what we have and know, with those from whom we expect the same in return, and it guides how we evaluate those who deviate from our expectations.The representations and inferential power underlying commonsense psychology trace back to early childhood -before children begin kindergarten, and often even in infancy. Work on how children reason about other agents' goals [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], desires [9][10][11], beliefs [12][13][14][15][16][17][18], and pro-social behavior [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] has advanced our understanding of what in our commonsense psychology is at work in early infancy [30][31][32] and what develops [16][17][33][34][35]. Nonetheless, major theoretical questions remain unresolved. What computations underlie our commonsense psychology, and to what extent are they specific to the social domain? Are there a small number of general principles by which humans reason about and evaluate other agents, or do we instead learn a large number of special case rules and heuristics? To what extent is there continuity between the computations supporting commonsense psychology in infancy and later ages? Is children's social-cognitive development a progressive refinement of a computational system in place from birth, or are there fundamentally new computational principles coming into play?In this article we advance a hypothesis that offers answers to each of these questions, and provides a unifying framework in which to understand the diverse social-cognitive capacities we see even in young children. We propose that human beings, from early infancy, interpret others' intentional actions through the lens of a naïve utility calculus: that is, people assume that others choose actions to maximize utilities -the rewards they expect to obtain relative to the costs...

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“…Using such techniques, data collected from infants as young as 5 months now show positive evidence of goal-attribution to non-human actors (Luo & Baillargeon, 2005).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two sets of researchers Baillargeon, 2005 andShimizu &Johnson, 2004) have used the method designed by Woodward (1998) to gather further evidence of infants' ability to attribute goals to non-human objects as well as people. This method also uses visual habituation to test whether infants encode actions in terms of the goals of the actor, or solely in terms of the spatiotemporal movements involved.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Actors and actions: The role of agent behavior in infants’ attribution of goals

Johnson

Shimizu

2007

Cognitive Development

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Twelve-month-old infants attribute goals to both familiar, human agents and unfamiliar, non-human agents. They also attribute goal-directedness to both familiar actions and unfamiliar ones. Four conditions examined information 12-month-olds use to determine which actions of an unfamiliar agent are goal-directed. Infants who witnessed the agent interact contingently with a human confederate encoded the agent's actions as goal-directed; infants who saw a human confederate model an intentional stance toward the agent without the agent's participation, did not. Infants who witnessed the agent align itself with one of two potential targets before approaching that target encoded the approach as goal-directed; infants who did not observe the self-alignment did not encode the approach as goal-directed. A possible common underpinning of these two seemingly independent sources of information is discussed.Research over the past decade has shown that infants construe people's behavior as directed at the world. By the end of their first year, infants selectively encode human behaviors such as grasping (Woodward, 1998), pointing (Woodward & Guajardo, 2002, looking (Johnson, Luo, & Ok, in press;Phillips, Wellman, & Spelke, 2002;Woodward, 2003), and emoting Repacholi, 1998) relative to possible targets in the world. Where and how they draw the line between intentional actors like people and non-intentional objects like rocks is debated.Some have proposed that infants attribute intentionality quite broadly, based on mechanisms designed to detect any goal-directed action, regardless of the identity of the actor (e.g., Baron-

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Can a Self-Propelled Box Have a Goal?

Cited by 355 publications

References 27 publications

The spatial foundations of the conceptual system

The spatial foundations of the conceptual system

The Naïve Utility Calculus: Computational Principles Underlying Commonsense Psychology

Actors and actions: The role of agent behavior in infants’ attribution of goals

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