The Infant as Onlooker: Learning From Emotional Reactions Observed in a Television Scenario

Abstract

Two studies investigated whether 10- and 12-month-olds can use televised emotional reactions to guide their behavior. Infants watched an actress orient toward 1 of 2 novel objects and react with neutral affect during baseline and with positive or negative affect during test. Infants then had 30 s to interact with the objects. In Study 1, 12-month-olds (N = 32) avoided the target object and showed increases in negative affect after observing the negative-emotion scenario. Twelve-month-olds' responses to positive vs. neutral signals did not differ significantly. In Study 2, 10-month-olds (N = 32) attended to the televised presentations but showed no consistent changes in their object interactions or affect. Thus, 12-month-olds used social information presented on television and associated emotional signals with the intended target.