Emergence of Selective Social Referencing in Infancy

Abstract

Seven and 10-month-old infants were presented with a remote-controlled toy dog that intermittently barked at 30-sec intervals as they faced an experimenter who either attended to them (look toward condition) or looked away (look away condition). Seven-month-old infants' looking toward the experimenter was significantly greater after the dog barking events compared to before regardless of experimental condition. In contrast, 10-month-old infants' looks were significantly greater after the barking events compared to before only when the experimenter was attending to them. These results suggest that by 10 months infants monitor and refer to people in an ambiguous situation depending on their attention toward them. This development is viewed as indexing the emergence of an intentional stance in social referencing by 10 months of age.