IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v5y2019i1d10.1057_s41599-019-0350-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Imaginary agents exist perceptually for children but not for adults

Author

Listed:
  • Yusuke Moriguchi

    (Kyoto University)

  • Yasuhiro Kanakogi

    (Otemon Gakuin University)

  • Yuko Okumura

    (NTT Communication Science Laboratories)

  • Ikuko Shinohara

    (National Institute for Educational Policy Research of Japan)

  • Shoji Itakura

    (Doshisha University)

  • Shinsuke Shimojo

    (California Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Mental imagery refers to representations and the accompanying experience of sensory information in the absence of appropriate sensory input. Little is known about children’s social imagery, imagery about an agent. It is possible that children’s social imagery may qualitatively differ from that of adults by involving more perceptual characteristics. We conducted three experiments to investigate the perceptual existence of social imagery when induced by verbal cues. Experiment 1 was a precondition for Experiments 2 and 3, and we examined whether children’s and adults’ predictive eye movements were disrupted by the presence of a real person’s face. Preschool children (n = 20) and adults (n = 20) watched a video where a woman, with/without her face shown, placed balls into a bucket. Participants’ gazes were less predictive of the woman’s actions in ‘Face’ versus ‘No-Face’ videos, indirectly indicating the perceptual presence of agents. Next, we examined whether adults’ and children’s predictive eye movements were affected by imagining a person. In Experiment 2, adult participants were presented with a video where the balls moved automatically and were asked to either watch the video (Ball condition, n = 20) or imagine that an invisible person moved the balls (Imagination condition, n = 20). Adult gazes did not differ between conditions. However, in Experiment 3, preschool children’s gazes were less predictive when imagining an invisible person’s actions (Invisible condition, n = 20) than when not imagining anything (Ball condition, n = 20) or when imagining an object (Fan condition, n = 20). The results suggest that children experience realistic social imagery induced by verbal cues.

Suggested Citation

  • Yusuke Moriguchi & Yasuhiro Kanakogi & Yuko Okumura & Ikuko Shinohara & Shoji Itakura & Shinsuke Shimojo, 2019. "Imaginary agents exist perceptually for children but not for adults," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-9, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:5:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-019-0350-6
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-019-0350-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-019-0350-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-019-0350-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yasuhiro Kanakogi & Shoji Itakura, 2011. "Developmental correspondence between action prediction and motor ability in early infancy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 2(1), pages 1-6, September.
    2. Ettore Ambrosini & Vasudevi Reddy & Annette de Looper & Marcello Costantini & Beatriz Lopez & C Sinigaglia, 2013. "Looking Ahead: Anticipatory Gaze and Motor Ability in Infancy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-9, July.
    3. Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi & Céline Scola & Satoshi Hirata, 2012. "Humans and chimpanzees attend differently to goal-directed actions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 3(1), pages 1-7, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anne Keitel & Wolfgang Prinz & Moritz M Daum, 2014. "Perception of Individual and Joint Action in Infants and Adults," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-9, September.
    2. Ettore Ambrosini & Vasudevi Reddy & Annette de Looper & Marcello Costantini & Beatriz Lopez & C Sinigaglia, 2013. "Looking Ahead: Anticipatory Gaze and Motor Ability in Infancy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-9, July.
    3. Maurits Adam & Birgit Elsner, 2020. "The impact of salient action effects on 6-, 7-, and 11-month-olds’ goal-predictive gaze shifts for a human grasping action," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-18, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:5:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-019-0350-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.