Young infants reach correctly in A-not-B tasks: on the development of stability and perseveration.

This paper examines the development of perseverative reaching in the A-not-B task. We describe two recent models that view perseveration as a sign of developmental progress toward stability. In Experiment 1, we test the novel prediction from both models that very young infants should not perseverate in the A-not-B task whereas older infants should. We tracked infants' behavior monthly on the A-not-B task and found that infants reached correctly at 5 months, and only perseverated at 7 and 8 months of age. Experiment 2 provides further evidence on the role of motor development in the emergence of perseveration by exploring the connection between perseveration and detailed changes in reach kinematics in two infants across the first year. These data together suggest that perseveration is a sign of developmental achievement on the path to stable and flexible behavior.

[1]  Linda B. Smith,et al.  Knowing in the context of acting: the task dynamics of the A-not-B error. , 1999, Psychological review.

[2]  Nadine Martin,et al.  Lexical retrieval mechanisms underlying whole-word perseveration errors in anomic aphasia , 1998 .

[3]  Esther Thelen,et al.  U-Shaped Changes in Behavior: A Dynamic Systems Perspective , 2004 .

[4]  Y. Munakata.  Article with Peer Commentaries and Response Infant Perseveration and Implications for Object Permanence Theories: a Pdp Model of the Ab B Task , 2022 .

[5]  E. Thelen,et al.  Connectionism and dynamic systems: are they really different? , 2003 .

[6]  E. Thelen,et al.  A Method for Identifying the Initiation of Reaching Movements in Natural Prehension. , 1995, Journal of motor behavior.

[7]  Y. Munakata,et al.  All Together Now: When Dissociations Between Knowledge and Action Disappear , 2001, Psychological science.

[8]  Linda B. Smith,et al.  Grounding development in cognitive processes. , 2000, Child development.

[9]  Linda B. Smith,et al.  Different is good: connectionism and dynamic systems theory are complementary emergentist approaches to development , 2003 .

[10]  E. Thelen,et al.  The dynamics of embodiment: A field theory of infant perseverative reaching , 2001, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[11]  Esther Thelen,et al.  Motor memory is a factor in infant perseverative errors , 2000 .

[12]  C. Hofsten,et al.  Structuring of early reaching movements: a longitudinal study. , 1991 .

[13]  H. Wellman,et al.  Infant search and object permanence: a meta-analysis of the A-not-B error. , 1987, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[14]  P. Zelazo,et al.  An age-related dissociation between knowing rules and using them ☆ , 1996 .

[15]  E. Bjork,et al.  Infant search errors: Stage of concept development or stage of memory development , 1984, Memory & Cognition.

[16]  Katherine D. Arbuthnott,et al.  To repeat or not to repeat : Repetition facilitation and inhibition in sequential retrieval , 1996 .

[17]  D. Stuss,et al.  Neuropsychological studies of the frontal lobes. , 1984, Psychological bulletin.

[18]  R. Baillargeon,et al.  Perseveration and problem solving in infancy. , 1999, Advances in child development and behavior.

[19]  Yuko Munakata,et al.  Perseverative reaching in infancy: The roles of hidden toys and motor history in the AB task , 1997 .

[20]  E Thelen,et al.  Development of reaching during the first year: role of movement speed. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[21]  Anne R. Schutte,et al.  Testing the dynamic field theory: working memory for locations becomes more spatially precise over development. , 2003, Child development.

[22]  A. Diamond,et al.  Development of the ability to use recall to guide action, as indicated by infants' performance on AB. , 1985, Child development.

[23]  C. Nelson,et al.  Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience , 2001 .

[24]  John P Spencer,et al.  Prototypes and particulars: geometric and experience-dependent spatial categories. , 2002, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[25]  J. Piaget.  The construction of reality in the child , 1954 .

[26]  B. Milner.  Effects of Different Brain Lesions on Card Sorting: The Role of the Frontal Lobes , 1963 .