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Abstract: Infants'
developing causal expectations for the outcome of a simple
tool-use event from ages 8 to 12 months were investigated.
Causal expectations were studied by comparing infants'
developing tool-use actions (i.e., as tool-use agents)
with their developing perceptual reactions (i.e., as tool-use
observers) to possible and impossible tool-use events.
In Experiment 1, tool-use actions were studied by presenting
infants, ages 8 and 12 months, with tool-use object-retrieval
problems. In Experiment 2, a second age-matched sample
of infants watched a comparable series of possible and
impossible tool-use events in which a tool was used to
retrieve a goal-object. Two core related findings were
made. First, infants' causal action and causal perception
develop in parallel. In both action and perception, supporting
tool-use develops before surrounding tool-use. Second,
infants' tool-use action develops before their causal
perception of comparable tool-use events. The findings
support the constructivist hypothesis that infants' causal
actions may develop before and inform their causal perceptions.
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