A New Look at Infant Pointing
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The current article proposes a new theory of infant pointing involving multiple layers of intentionality and shared intentionality. In the context of this theory, evidence is presented for a rich interpretation of prelinguistic communication, that is, one that posits that when 12-month-old infants point for an adult they are in some sense trying to influence her mental states. Moreover, evidence is also presented for a deeply social view in which infant pointing is best understood—on many levels and in many ways—as depending on uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation and shared intentionality (e.g., joint intentions and attention with others). Children's early linguistic skills are built on this already existing platform of prelinguistic communication.
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Studies in developmental psychology demonstrate that infants and adults alike point to share information about their environment.
“Studies in developmental psychology demonstrate that infants and adults alike point to share information about their environment [3].”
From RoboPoint: A Vision-Language Model for Spatial Affordance Prediction for Robotics (2024) · cites this paper as [3]
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- Authors
- Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., & Liszkowski, U.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Tomasello, Michael
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2007-05-01
- Volume
- 78
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 705-722
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8624
- OpenAlex
- W2165225874
- Cited by
- 1,039
- References
- 96
- Citations by year
- 2026: 52 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 39 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 65 · 2020: 84 · 2019: 63 · 2018: 65 · 2017: 55 · 2016: 60 · 2015: 77 · 2014: 62 · 2013: 57 · 2012: 45
- FWCI
- 80.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- infant pointing, shared intentionality, prelinguistic communication, social cognition, cooperation, joint attention, language acquisition, theory of mind, 12-month-old infants
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Child Development, Psychology, Child, Gestures, Humans, Infant, Motivation, Nonverbal Communication, Psychological Theory, Infant Behavior, Intention
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