Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15

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Cognitive Development

Infants’ reasoning about ambiguous motion events:

The role of spatiotemporal and dispositional status
information夽
Birgit Träuble ∗, Sabina Pauen
Department of Psychology, Hauptstrasse 47-51, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: Two experiments investigate whether 7-month-olds reason about

Infant reasoning the origin of motion events by considering two sources of causally
Causal motion attribution
relevant information: spatiotemporal cues and dispositional sta-
Causal processing
tus information derived from the identification of an object as
either animate (with the enduring causal property of self-initiated
motion) or inanimate (requiring an external cause of motion).
Infants were shown a ball, a human hand, and an animal engaged
in a motion event. While dispositional status information remained
constant, spatiotemporal relations varied across conditions. Based
on looking time data, we conclude that infants attend flexibly to
both types of information. Without spatiotemporal cues, infants
rely on dispositional status information. When two objects pro-
vide dispositional cues to motion origin, but only one also provides
corresponding spatiotemporal information, infants attribute the
motion to the object providing both types of information. Given
an ambiguous motion event with two dispositional motion origi-
nators but no additional spatiotemporal cues, infants may prefer
either of the two.
© 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

夽
This research was financed by a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG). The authors thank Ricarda Steinmayr for
help with the data analysis and the research student assistants for data-collection and coding. Special thanks go to all families
who participated.
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: birgit.traeuble@psychologie.uni-heidelberg.de (B. Träuble).

0885-2014/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2010.07.002
2 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15

Our natural environment is full of moving things involved in complex, dynamic interactions with
each other. To identify the origins of a given motion and to perceive dynamic events as causal allows
us to structure new information, make predictions, and control our environment. Given the great rel-
evance of these skills for everyday reasoning, it seems important to understand how humans learn
to process causally relevant information in complex dynamic events. This is our goal in the present
study. We start with a summary of existing work that highlights the importance of spatiotemporal
information to causal perception of motion events. Based on the general insight that infants’ causal
attributions do not rely on automatic perceptual processing only, but also on causal inferences that
consider object kind information, we next discuss the relevance of the animate–inanimate distinction.
We demonstrate that an object’s dispositional status as inanimate or animate with certain enduring
causal properties can be inferred from static information about appearance and from dynamic infor-
mation related to movement. Finally, we consider how spatiotemporal information and dispositional
status information interact in reasoning about motion events before introducing the rationale behind
and general method used in our experiments.
Summary of work on causal perception in motion events. Empirical work on causal perception
addresses the philosophical question of whether causality is perceived directly or is recognized as a
result of learning processes (Einhorn & Hogarth, 1986; Gibson, 1984; Heider & Simmel, 1944; Shultz,
1982; White, 1989, 1990). Numerous studies focus on mechanical events, particularly launching and
entraining events (Leslie and Keeble, 1987; Leslie, 1982, 1984a; Newman, Choi, Wynn, & Scholl, 2008;
Oakes & Cohen, 1990). In a typical launching event, moving object A contacts stationary object B, which
subsequently starts moving. In a typical entraining event, moving object A contacts stationary object
B and entrains it. Most studies analyzing how humans interpret launching and entraining events
have been inspired by the ideas of Michotte (1963), who claimed that an innate perceptual input
analyzer automatically turns certain privileged input into a “causal impression.” Such input consists
of spatiotemporal relations in event categories like launching, entraining, or expulsion. If this is true,
causal perception of motion events should be evident even in young infants. Studies by Leslie (1982,
1984a) and Cohen, Amsel, Redford, and Casasola (1998) support this claim. The authors have shown
that infants as young as 4 months distinguish between direct launching events and events containing
spatial gaps and/or temporal delays. Michotte went a step further by claiming that the perception of
causality in these motion events cannot be affected by anything but spatiotemporal information (Saxe
& Carey, 2006). Contradicting this assumption, Oakes & Cohen, 1990, 1995; Oakes and Cohen (1990,
1995; Cohen & Oakes, 1993) found that the salience of different types of causal information varies by
age. In commenting on their study, Leslie (1984a) argued that infants’ causal perception of launching
events results from a process of mental construction influenced by object information (Lucksinger,
Cohen, & Madole, 1992; Oakes, 1994). In sum, research suggests that infants perceive motion events
in causal terms from very early on, and that spatiotemporal cues defining the causal relation between
objects play a key role in infants’ interpretation of such events. It has also been demonstrated, how-
ever, that causal attributions in infancy may not depend solely on automatic perceptual processing
of spatiotemporal cues, but also on the ability to consider object information other than directly per-
ceived motion. How, then, do causal inferences develop with age, and how might they be influenced by
static object information? Next, we demonstrate the relevance of the animate–inanimate distinction.
Relevance of the animate–inanimate distinction for causal inferences. Preverbal infants are able to dis-
criminate animate from inanimate objects in categorization tasks when shown either static pictures
(Behl-Chadha, 1996; Quinn & Johnson, 2000) or 3-D toy models of real objects (Mandler & McDonough,
1993, 1996; Pauen, 2002a, 2002b). Some studies demonstrate the role of static attributes related to
appearance (Eimas & Quinn, 1994; Quinn & Eimas, 1993, 1996), whereas others focus on the role of
dynamic properties (Luo & Baillargeon, 2005). Rakison and Poulin-Dubois (2001) summarized exist-
ing evidence and specified six aspects that provide dynamic information of causal relevance for the
animate–inanimate distinction in infancy: (1) origin of motion: internal versus external origin; (2) type
of causal action: direct versus remote; (3) path of motion: linear versus nonlinear; (4) type of inter-
action: contingent versus non-contingent; (5) purpose of action: intentional versus non-intentional;
and (6) the causal role: agent versus recipient of action. Each aspect has been studied extensively
(Kosugi, Ishida, & Fujita, 2003; Kotovski & Baillargeon, 2000; Legerstee, 1994; Leslie, 1984a; Mandler,
2000a, 2000b; Molina, Spelke, & King, 1996; Oakes & Cohen, 1990; Poulin-Dubois & Shultz, 1988). A
 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15 3

large body of research suggests that the first aspect (origin of motion) is crucial to the causal frame-
work that infants rely on when interpreting physical events (Luo, Kaufman, & Baillargeon, 2009). Any
animate being is assumed to have an internal source of energy that allows it to initiate and control its
own motion and to cause other objects to move by exerting force upon them (Gelman, 1990; Gelman
& Spelke, 1981; Gelman, Durgin, & Kaufman, 1995; Leslie & Keeble, 1987; Leslie, 1984a, 1994, 1995;
Luo et al., 2009). These abilities are distinct, but the second implies the first. Within this framework,
the term “agency” refers to the fact that certain self-propelled entities seem to exert a force on other
objects in an apparently goal-directed, intentional way.
The animate–inanimate distinction is fundamental to causal thinking. Preverbal infants are well
aware that animate beings and inanimate objects differ with regard to enduring causal properties (i.e.,
their dispositional status). Infants use static features and/or dynamic attributes to infer the disposi-
tional status of a given entity, and self-propelledness is a basic criterion for making the determination.
The interaction of spatiotemporal information and dispositional status information in motion events.
Recent work suggests that information about dispositional status becomes relevant when spatiotem-
poral information does not reveal the cause of a given movement (Saxe & Carey, 2006; Saxe, Tzelnic,
& Carey, 2007). Dispositional status information and spatiotemporal information are by no means
redundant and sometimes suggest different inferences. For example, humans are clearly self-propelled
and can control their own movements. Yet, spatiotemporal information may reveal that a human
being is moved by some external cause (e.g., when she stumbles and falls after being pushed). Noting
this distinction, Saxe and Carey (2006) distinguished between the agentive and receptive role of any
entity involved in a given causal event. Causal roles, understood thus, may differ from enduring causal
properties (i.e., dispositional status).
Spelke, Phillips, and Woodward (1995) provided the first implicit evidence that infants consider dis-
positional status information when ascribing causal roles. Using a violation of expectation paradigm,
they familiarized 7-month-olds with a scene in which an occluder covered the central part of a stage. A
person entered the stage from the left side and went behind the occluder. A second person, half-hidden
behind the right edge of the occluder, then started moving toward the right side of the stage. At test,
the occluder was removed and infants saw two different test scenes. In one, the first person entered
the stage from the left side, moved toward the second person, made physical contact with her, and
caused her to start moving (as in a typical launching event). In the other test scene, the first person
stopped some distance from the second person, who subsequently started to move on her own. Infants
did not show any looking preferences for either test scene when two humans performed these actions.
When humans were replaced by two coloured blocks, however, infants looked longer at the test scene
presenting motion without physical contact. Hence, infants were sensitive to spatial relations in this
event (contact versus spatial gap), but sensitivity varied with the nature of the entity shown in motion
(humans or inert objects). That is, dispositional status information was critical for infants’ perception
of the event (for similar findings, see Kosugi & Fujita, 2002; Legerstee, 1994; Markson & Spelke, 2006;
Schlottmann & Surian, 1999).
Saxe, Tenenbaum, and Carey (2005) explored 10–12-month-olds’ ability to reason about a hidden
entity’s dispositional status. Whereas in the study of Spelke et al. (1995) infants perceived spatiotem-
poral information identifying the cause of a given motion, here they had to infer what might have
happened. Infants were first familiarized with a beanbag and shown both static and dynamic infor-
mation identifying it as an inanimate object. Trials were presented on a small stage with a wall on one
side, and infants were habituated to the beanbag flying from behind the wall and landing in the middle
of the stage. At test, infants saw a human hand or a toy train entering the stage either from the side
from where the beanbag flew (same-side trials) or from the opposite side (different-side trials). Infants
participating in the hand condition looked longer during the different-side test trials than during the
same-side test trials. That is, they were less surprised when a hand entered the stage from where the
beanbag did than when it emerged from the other side. However, infants in the toy-train condition
did not show such looking preferences. In a second experiment, infants were first familiarized with a
puppet shown in self-propelled motion, receiving both static and dynamic information identifying the
dispositional status of the puppet as an animate being. At test, infants watched the puppet perform
the same kind of movement as the beanbag. In this case, infants did not attribute the perceived motion
to either the hand or the train, presumably because they thought that the puppet was a self-propelled
4 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15

agent. Taken together, these findings suggest that infants less than 1 year old considered dispositional
status information when inferring causal roles in a motion scene.
To further analyze how dispositional status information affects processes of motion attribution,
Pauen and Träuble (2000, 2009) examined 7-month-olds’ expectations regarding the future move-
ment behaviour of an animate being and an inanimate object, using an ambiguous motion paradigm.
Physically connected, an unfamiliar animal and a ball performed a contingent, seemingly animate
motion on stage (i.e., self-propelled, following a nonlinear path; Mandler, 1992a, 1992b, 2004). When
both entities were later shown motionless and in separate locations, 7-month-olds expected the ani-
mal and not the ball to start moving again. Because the spatiotemporal information was ambiguous
(both objects showed the same type of motion), infants had to consider dispositional status infor-
mation to ascribe the origin of motion to one of the objects. Consistent with this interpretation, a
follow-up study by these authors revealed that infants no longer showed any looking preference for
the animal when static features characteristic of animate beings (like facial features) were removed
or when they were replaced by inanimate features (i.e., furry body replaced by a plastic spiral). This
demonstrates that infants attend to static information (facial and body features) about dispositional
status to identify the “motion-originator” in a spatiotemporally ambiguous motion event. Note that
infants’ expectations regarding the objects’ future movements did not require ascription of agentive
and receptive roles to the animal and the ball, respectively (while this was the case in the study by
Saxe et al., 2005), or any causal reasoning about agency (Luo et al., 2009). It was sufficient to identify
the animal (and not the ball) as a dispositional object generally capable of self-propelled motion.
In sum, existing evidence strongly suggests that infants are able to make causal inferences based
not only on spatiotemporal information, but also on other perceptual cues indicating the dispositional
status of an entity. How infants integrate both types of information is our focus here. Using the general
paradigm introduced by Pauen and Träuble (2009), we examine 7-month-olds’ motion attribution
in various ambiguous motion events, manipulating spatiotemporal information to investigate how
corresponding cues interact with dispositional status information.
By so extending the original paradigm, we can examine not only whether infants consider domain
boundaries (animate, inanimate entities) when ascribing self-propelledness within an ambiguous
motion event, but also whether their motion attributions are influenced by various combinations of
relevant information types (i.e., spatiotemporal and/or dispositional cues). Based on previous findings,
we expected 7-month-olds to integrate these different types of information flexibly.

1. General method

Pauen and Träuble (2000, 2009) showed infants a series of three scenes for 30 s each: a baseline
scene, an ambiguous motion scene and a test scene. During Scene 1 (baseline) and Scene 3 (test), all
objects involved in the task were motionless and spatially separated on the stage. The baseline scene
determined initial looking times for each object. A comparison of looking times for baseline and test
scenes indicated any change due to the treatment – Scene 2 – which involved a motion event varied
systematically between experiments and conditions in terms of spatiotemporal characteristics. During
Scene 3, infants should look toward the location where they anticipate movement (Gilmore & Johnson,
1997; Markson & Spelke, 2006; Van Hofsten, Vishton, Spelke, Feng, & Rosander, 1998), displaying a
looking preference for the object(s) they assume capable of self-initiated motion. The validity of this
assumption has been tested and confirmed by Pauen and Träuble (2009): When either the animal or
the ball was presented in motion (with the other object remaining motionless) during Scene 2, infants
showed looking preferences for that object during Scene 3. When both objects were displayed in an
ambiguous motion event, 7-month-olds expected the animal and not the ball to start moving again
during Scene 3. The authors concluded that infants’ attended to features that identify an object as
animate (i.e., capable of self-initiated motion) or not.
Analysis of looking behaviour in these studies also revealed that infants’ expectations regarding
objects’ future movements (Scene 3) last for only 15 s. This suggests that infants’ responses reflect
visual expectations about future movements that vanish after being refuted. In a follow-up study,
Pauen, Träuble, Brusniak, and Kretz (2003) showed that increased looking times for the animals were
only maintained during the first half of Scene 3, whether Scene 3 began immediately after Scene 2 or
 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15 5

after systematically controlled delays. They attribute this to the fact that infants initially expected the
animal would start moving again, but quickly realized it would not. Therefore, only the first half of the
presentation time during Scenes 1 and 3 were considered when determining changes in looking time.
We examined motion attribution during a threefold interaction – a departure from the original
investigation. Infants observed three objects – two animate and one inanimate – involved in different
types of interactions in two experiments. The three entities shown included a human hand, an unfa-
miliar animal, and a ball. The animal and the ball were the same as those used by Pauen and Träuble
(2009). We chose a human hand as the additional animate entity because infants perceive humans and
their hands as prototypical dispositional agents (Leslie, 1984b; Markson & Spelke, 2006; Muentener
& Carey, 2006; Rakison & Poulin-Dubois, 2001; Saxe & Carey, 2006; Saxe et al., 2007; Woodward &
Summerville, 2000; Woodward, 1998).

2. Experiment 1

Experiment 1 presented all three objects (animal, ball and human hand) in each scene. In one
condition (guiding condition), the human hand caused the movement of the passive animal and ball.
In a second condition (hover condition), the hand was shown in motion but did not cause the other
objects to move. Rather, the animal and ball were displayed in self-propelled motion, and the hand
performed a parallel hovering motion about 20 cm above them.
In the guiding condition, the ball could easily be identified as an inert object based on appear-
ance as well as spatiotemporal information, moving only after contact by the human hand. Both
animal and hand were identifiable as entities with an internal source of energy (Luo et al., 2009),
with static appearance and motion-related dynamic features consistent with the dispositional status
of an animate being. However, because the ball and the animal were motionless until contacted and
entrained by the hand, spatiotemporal information suggested that both played passive roles (Saxe et
al., 2005). Only the human hand provided a fully consistent pattern of information (dispositional and
spatiotemporal) for ascribing the origin of movement in the guiding condition.
In the hover condition, the hand still provided dispositional status information identifying it as
having an internal source of energy. It clearly appeared to be part of a human body and performed
an apparently animate, self-propelled motion. Unlike in the guiding condition, however, the hand did
not physically contact the animal or the ball.
We predicted that, from Scene 1 to Scene 3, infants would show an increase in time looking at the
animal in the hover, but not in the guiding, condition. Only in the hover condition were the animal and
ball involved in a self-propelled ambiguous motion event, and dispositional status information (i.e.
static features such as face and fur) identifies the animal as more likely to show further self-initiated
motion. An increase in looking time for the animal in the hover condition would corroborate the results
obtained by Pauen and Träuble (2009).
We predicted that infants would show increased time looking at the hand from Scene 1 to Scene
3 in the guiding condition because only the hand provided both dispositional and spatiotemporal
information for an ascription of the causal origin of the motion event. In the hover condition, both the
hand and the animal were shown in self-propelled motion. Hence, infants should expect both entities
to show further movement.
If after perceiving these two scenes, infants respond differently across conditions in time spent
looking at the animal this difference can be attributed to spatiotemporal information, since appearance
features did not vary between conditions.

2.1. Method

2.1.1. Participants
Forty-four 7-month-old infants (22 girls; mean age 7 months 12 days; range 7 months 0 days to 7
months 29 days) participated. Seven additional infants participated but were excluded from the final
sample due to fussiness (n = 2), experimenter error (n = 3), or because they did not see all three objects
within the first 15 s of Scene 1 (n = 2). Half were assigned to the guiding condition and half to the hover
condition (gender balanced within each group).
6 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15

Fig. 1. Design of Experiment 1. Conditions differed with respect to the causal involvement of the human hand. In the guiding
condition, the hand was in physical contact with the animal and the ball whereas in the hover condition the hand was in parallel
motion at a distance of about 20 cm above the animal and the ball.

2.1.2. Material
The infant sat in front of a small stage (80 cm × 55 cm) which could be obscured completely by a
white blind about 30 cm distance from the child. The experimenter operated the blind manually with
strings. On its other three sides, the stage was surrounded by wooden walls. The left and right walls
(measuring 35 cm × 55 cm) were white; the back wall (35 cm × 75 cm) was black. Located in a central
position of the back wall, at about the same height as the eyes of the infant, a hole (6 cm diameter)
was cut out and a video camera mounted behind it to record the infant’s looking behaviour. From this
angle it was impossible to record any object placed in close proximity of the back wall. The floor of
the stage was covered by grey pasteboard.
A ball, an unfamiliar animal, and a human hand were displayed on the stage at once. The ball was
8 cm in diameter and painted with bright yellow dots to increase its attractiveness. It consisted of two
halves which could be separated to reveal a battery-driven silent motor inside. The motor could be
turned on and off via an invisible switch on the outer surface of the ball. When turned on, a weight
inside the ball began to rotate, causing the ball to move in an animate way (speed and direction
changes, nonlinear motion path). The animal was made of soft, lightweight material and measured
20 cm × 6 cm. It had two main body parts: a head with facial features and a furry white body made of
artificial, feather-like material. The unadorned human hand belonged to a female experimenter. Infants
saw only the hand and lower part of the experimenter’s arm on stage. Fig. 1 shows the experimental
setting for both conditions.

2.1.3. Procedure
The infant was seated in front of the stage. After being familiarized with the up- and down-
movement of the blind, infants viewed three separate, 30-s scenes presented with only a few seconds
between them.
In both conditions, all three entities lay motionless on the stage 20 cm from each other during Scene
1 (baseline) and Scene 3 (test). The position (left, middle, right) of each object was counterbalanced
across the sample and across the scenes. Scene 2 differed between the two conditions as follows.

2.1.4. Guiding condition

After the blind went up, infants first saw the animal and the ball lying side by side and physically
in contact at the center of the stage. Next, the experimenter’s hand entered the stage from above,
grasped both entities at once and moved them over the floor of the stage in a manner indicating
animacy (changing speed and direction). At the end of the scene, the hand released both ball and
animal, retreated to the side of the stage from which it emerged, and disappeared.
 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15 7

Table 1
Mean looking times (s) in Scene 1 and Scene 3 for each of the three objects (hand, animal, ball), by condition.

Condition Scene Object

Hand (SE) Animal (SE) Ball (SE)

Guiding Scene 1 1.48 (.15) 3.13 (.45) 3.86 (.38)

Scene 3 2.11* (.29) 2.98 (.39) 4.11 (.33)

Hover Scene 1 1.24 (.24) 3.42 (.56) 4.20 (.48)

Scene 3 .95 (.20) 5.39** (.49) 3.99 (.46)

Significant changes between Scene 1 and 3 are typed in boldface.

*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.

2.1.5. Hover condition

Infants saw the animal and the ball rolling around the stage together. Simultaneously, infants saw
the hand moving in parallel to the animal and the ball, following the direction of their movements
and 20 cm above them, At no time did the hand touch the animal or ball. Movements of the animal
and ball were quite similar in both conditions.

2.2. Results

Infants’ looking behaviour was videotaped for analysis. Two independent coders measured infants’
cumulative looking times for each scene and object. The mean scores of both coders were used for
further analysis. Mean inter-coder reliability was r = .94. This score is based on data for Scenes 1 and 3
only. Scene 2 was excluded from this analysis because looking times in Scene 2 were almost at ceiling:
All but three infants in the guiding condition and two in the hover condition spent the whole time
(30 s) looking at the motion event in Scene 2. Given the close proximity of all objects during the motion
event and the angle of the camera view, it was impossible to code infants’ looking times separately
for the hand and the other two entities during Scene 2. Still, it was obvious that infants could see all
three entities at once. Based on our results, we concluded that all infants were highly attentive to the
motion events and spent an equivalent length of time looking at each scene in both conditions.
Looking times during Scenes 1 and 3 could be analyzed in more detail. Because all three objects
were stationary and displayed sufficiently far from each other, it was possible to compare looking
times for each entity at baseline and test. Mean looking times in Scene 1 and Scene 3 are shown in
Table 1.
With regard to the ball, a 2 × 2 repeated measures mixed model analysis of variance (ANOVA),
with Scene (1, 3) as within-subject factor and Condition (hover, guiding) as between-subject factor,
revealed no significant main effect or interaction. Consistent with this finding, comparisons within
each of the two conditions revealed no significant effect for either the guiding condition, t(21) = −.53;
p = .60, or the hover condition, t(21) = .55; p = .59. Hence, infants’ interest in the ball did not change due
to the motion scene.
With regard to the animal, the same analysis revealed a significant main effect for Condition,
F(1, 42) = 6.57; p < .05; Á2 = .14, as well as for Scene, F(1, 42) = 4.61; p < .05; Á2 = .10, qualified by a
Scene × Condition interaction, F(1, 42) = 6.22; p < .05; Á2 = .13. Further planned contrasts revealed
that infants in the hover condition showed longer looking times in Scene 3 compared to Scene 1,
t(21) = −2.90; p < .01, while corresponding comparisons in the guiding condition did not reach signif-
icance, t(21) = .29; p = .78. Infants looked much longer at the animal after watching the motion scene
only in the hover condition (Table 1).
For the hand, a main effect appeared for Condition, F(1, 42) = 6.63; p < .05; Á2 = .14, qualified by
a Scene × Condition interaction, F(1, 42) = 6.20; p < .05; Á2 = .13. Further planned contrasts revealed
that infants in the guiding condition showed longer looking times in Scene 3 compared to Scene 1,
t(21) = −1.95; p < .05, while corresponding comparisons in the hover condition did not reach signifi-
cance, t(21) = 1.55; p = .14. Only in the guiding condition did infants look longer at the human hand
after watching the motion scene.
8 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15

As shown in Table 1, infants shifted their visual attention to the hand only in the guiding condition.
With no spatiotemporal information identifying the human hand as a potential cause of the conjoint
motion of animal and ball, infants shifted their looking preference toward the animal in the hover
condition, thus replicating the findings of Pauen and Träuble (2009).

2.3. Discussion

Results of Experiment 1 support the idea that 7-month-old infants consider both spatiotemporal
and dispositional status information when interpreting a given motion event.
After seeing the hand pick up and move both objects in Scene 2, infants increased looking time
only for the hand from Scene 1 to Scene 3. Looking times for the animal and the ball did not change
when the hand was defined as the source of motion by spatiotemporal cues in the guiding condition.
Hence, even if the animal provided dispositional cues to animacy, the fact that the hand provided
dispositional status information combined with spatiotemporal information was crucial to infants’
looking behaviour.
That infants increased looking time toward the animal only when the hand was not directly involved
indicates use of dispositional status information. In the hover condition, infants could only refer to
dispositional status information to reason about the origin of the conjoint motion of the animal and
ball (Pauen & Träuble, 2009). Since they did not show the same looking preference in Scene 1, it is
possible that infants needed to do more than analyse static appearance cues in order to identify the
animal as the motion-originator. It was also necessary to see the animal in self-propelled motion.
Somewhat surprisingly, initial looking times for the human hand were much shorter than for the
animal and the ball. This was true for both conditions (i.e., two independent samples), as well as for
Experiment 2, indicating that the finding is robust. Since the hand’s position varied systematically
within each condition, this cannot be explained by the spatial configuration of the objects on stage.
Furthermore, we can rule out that infants did not see the hand during Scene 2 because all objects were
presented in close proximity and were visible from the infant’s point of view. We can only speculate
why the hand received comparatively little attention, but one reason may be that infants prefer to
look at novel objects rather than at a highly familiar human hand. As demonstrated by Pauen and
Träuble (2009), initial looking preferences do not automatically vary with the dispositional status
of the object. When the animal was paired with a highly attractive ball (the same one used in this
experiment), infants preferred to look at the ball rather than at the animal. The reverse was true when
the animal was paired with a comparatively uninteresting ball. In this study, we used the attractive
ball, which may explain why infants looked at it so long during Scene 1. Note, however, that general
interest in an object does not explain the observed changes in looking preferences from Scene 1 to
Scene 3, which seem to vary systematically with the motion information given during Scene 2 (see
also Pauen & Träuble, 2009).
One may also ask why infants in the hover condition did not look longer at the human hand during
Scene 3 after watching it perform self-propelled motion during Scene 2. It may be that the movement
of the hand was rather unspectacular compared to the ambiguous movement of the animal and the
ball. Young infants are highly familiar with human hands and their self-initiated motions. In contrast,
the movement of the animal and the ball provided many novel aspects. Infants had never seen such
an animal before, as it was specifically designed for the present study. Further, the conjoint motion of
the animal and the ball was more complex than the hand’s motion. It therefore seems plausible that
infants focused on the movement of the animal and the ball rather than on the movement of the hand
during Scene 2, which led to an increase in looking time for only the animal during Scene 3. As revealed
by Table 1, this increase was quite strong, indicating that the animal’s motion during Scene 2 had a
large impact on infants’ visual interest (see also Pauen & Träuble, 2009), but only when the animal
was shown in self-propelled motion, as in the hover condition. One might also speculate that infants
focused their attention on the conjoint movement of the animal and ball because they interpreted it
as a causal interaction between an agent and recipient.
The findings presented thus far support the assumption that infants attend to causally relevant
information and analyze a given situation based on both dispositional status information and spa-
tiotemporal cues in a flexible way. However, we cannot rule out that the assignment of motion origin
 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15 9

to the human hand in the guiding condition was based on spatiotemporal information alone. In the
guiding condition, the human hand came in and reached out for both objects, thus providing – at least
in part – spatiotemporal cues for an entraining event. Thus, infants might ascribe motion origin to the
human hand based on spatiotemporal cues to causality and/or dispositional status cues. To address
this issue, we next examined infants’ looking behaviour during a threefold ambiguous motion event
providing no spatiotemporal information relevant for making causal attributions at all.

3. Experiment 2

The procedure in Experiment 2 was similar to the guiding condition in Experiment 1, except that
no information about the onset of motion was given. When the blind went up to reveal Scene 2, all
three objects were already moving on stage together. The hand neither reached in to pick up the two
objects, nor released the objects, nor left the scene while the infants could see the stage. If the lack of
this spatiotemporal information is irrelevant, we would expect the same results as in Experiment 1
(guiding condition). If we instead assume that this information is crucial in leading infants to expect
the hand rather than the animal to start moving in Experiment 1, infants should have difficulty forming
expectations about which object will move next. Based on the hypothesis that spatiotemporal cues
interact with dispositional cues, we reasoned that infants would ascribe potential for self-initiated
motion to either the hand or to the animal, but not to the ball. Alternatively, they might become
confused if a threefold, ambiguous motion event is too complex for a 7-month-old infant to analyse.
In that case, infants would not be able to form any specific expectations regarding the objects’ future
movements and would therefore show no shifts in looking time toward any of the three entities from
Scene 1 to Scene 3. Because this is the first study testing infants’ inferences in a complex threefold
ambiguous motion event, Experiment 2 is exploratory.

3.1. Method

3.1.1. Participants and procedure

Twenty-two 7-month-old infants (13 girls; mean age 7 months 10 days; range 7 months 0 days
to 7 months 27 days) participated. Four additional infants were tested but excluded from the final
sample due to fussiness (n = 2) and experimenter error (n = 2). For Scene 1 and Scene 3 the procedure
was the same as in Experiment 1, where the hand, the animal, and the ball were stationary on the
stage. During Scene 2, infants saw all three entities in conjoint movement from the beginning to the
end of the scene. Infants did not see the hand come into contact with the animal and ball or leave the
stage.

3.2. Results and discussion

Again, two independent coders measured infants’ looking times in Scenes 1 and 3 separately for
each of the three objects. Mean inter-coder reliability was r = .94. (For the same reason as in Experiment
1, this score was based on data from Scenes 1 and 3 only). The mean scores of both coders were used
for further analysis.
All but two infants spent the entire presentation period looking at the motion event in Scene 2.
To test whether infants showed any change in mean looking time from Scene 1 to Scene 3, we
conducted a 3 × 2 repeated measures mixed model ANOVA with Object (hand, animal, ball) and Scene
(1, 3) as within-subject factors. This analysis revealed no significant main effect or interaction. Mean
looking times for Scenes 1 and Scene 3 are shown in Table 2.
Infants did not show any coherent shift in looking preferences to any of the entities in the threefold
ambiguous motion event.
These findings can be interpreted in at least two ways. A threefold motion event may be too com-
plex to allow a 7-month-old to form any specific expectations. Or, the event does not provide infants
with spatiotemporal information revealing which object caused the given motion. Based on dispo-
sitional status information, the agentive role could be ascribed either to the hand or to the animal.
Scene 2 did not contain any additional cues that could have allowed infants to attribute the cause
10 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15

Table 2
Mean looking times (s) in Scene 1 and Scene 3 for each of the three objects (hand, animal, ball).

Scene Object

Hand (SE) Animal (SE) Ball (SE)

Scene 1 2.80 (.34) 4.01 (.41) 3.88 (.38)

Scene 3 2.85 (.41) 3.75 (.44) 3.60 (.37)

of motion to one of the two entities. For that reason, some infants may have shifted attention away
from the animal and toward the hand, and others may have done the opposite. As a result, mean
looking times remained the same for each object, despite the fact that infants were engaged in causal
reasoning.
To evaluate these two interpretations, Experiment 2 data were re-examined using cluster analysis.
This method allows us to identify groups of infants with similar response patterns. Should corre-
sponding clusters exist, a subsequent discriminate analysis can determine whether these subgroups
show a statistically distinct pattern of responding. To express the differences in infants’ looking times
between Scene 1 and Scene 3 for each of the three objects, the corresponding standardized residuals
of looking time differences for each kind of object (calculated by using the linear regression model)
were considered as raw data.
If some infants shifted attention toward the animal, whereas others shifted attention toward the
hand, but no subgroup shifted attention toward the ball, this would support the interpretation that
infants were disambiguating the complex event and reasoning about possible sources of the perceived
motion. A hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward’s linkage method and squared Euclidian distance
as similarity measure revealed a clear two-cluster solution (Fig. 2).
In a second step, we performed a discriminant analysis using the subgroups recovered by the
cluster analysis as input and obtained a significant result, wilks’ lambda = .29; chi2 (3) = 22.77; p < .001,
suggesting that the two clusters were statistically separated.
To examine the specific dimensions on which the two clusters differed, we conducted a one-way
ANOVA, with the standardized residuals for looking time differences as dependent variables and the
cluster membership as the independent measure. This analysis revealed significant cluster differences
with regard to looking time differences for the hand, F(1, 20) = 34.08; p < .001; Á2 = .63, as well as for
the animal, F(1, 20) = 9.06; p < .01; Á2 = .31, but no significant effect for the ball, F(1, 20) = .91; p = .3;
Á2 = .04. Table 3 shows the mean values referring to the standardized residuals as well as the cluster
membership for each of the three entities.
As illustrated in Table 3, positive looking time differences for the hand in cluster 1 accompany
negative looking time differences in cluster 2, while the inverse pattern is found for the animal. Looking
time differences for the ball did not contribute to the cluster distribution. Corresponding comparisons
between the two clusters for each object revealed significant differences for the hand, t(20) = 5.84;
p < .001 and for the animal, t(20) = −3.02; p < .01, whereas similar comparisons for the ball did not reach
significance, t(20) = −.95; p = .53. Infants with positive looking time differences for the hand were likely
to show negative looking time differences for the animal and vice versa. This effect is also reflected by

Table 3
Mean values (M) referring to the standardized residuals (SR) as well as the cluster membership (1,2) for each of the three objects.

Cluster M SE N
***
SR hand 1 .829 .22 10
2 −.691 .16 12

SR animal 1 −.584 .24 10 **

2 .486 .25 12

SR ball 1 −.218 .42 10 n.s.

2 .181 .17 12
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.
 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15 11

Fig. 2. Dendrogram resulting from a hierarchical cluster analysis using squared Euclidian distances. Individuals are plotted on
the y-axis. The x-axis (top scale) measures inter-cluster distances (fusion-values). The branches represent clusters obtained on
each step of hierarchical clustering. Increasing fusion-values indicate increasing cluster heterogeneity (i.e. long horizontal lines
indicate more distinct separation between the groups).

a highly negative correlation between the hand and the animal variables (r = .513, p < .05). As expected,
no significant correlations appeared involving the ball (animal–ball: r = −.001; hand–ball: r = −.037).
In sum, the analysis of looking patterns in Experiment 2 revealed two clearly distinct clusters, with
the looking time differences for the hand and the animal being the major source of observed cluster
differences. One group of infants showed an increase in looking time for the animal from Scene 1 to
Scene 3, and a decrease for the hand. The other subgroup showed the reversed looking time pattern.
Table 4 shows the mean looking times in Scene 1 and Scene 3 for each of the two subgroups.

Table 4
Mean looking times (in s) in Scene 1 and Scene 3 for each of the three objects, separated by the two clusters revealed by the
cluster analysis.

Cluster Scene Object

Hand (SE) Animal (SE) Ball (SE)

Cluster 1 (n = 10) Scene 1 3.20 (.51) 3.54 (.45) 4.69 (.63)

Scene 3 4.22 (.47) 2.45 (.56) 3.81 (.77)

Cluster 2 (n = 12) Scene 1 2.61 (.47) 4.04 (.65) 3.37 (.37)

Scene 3 1.70 (.44) 4.93 (.49) 3.23 (.27)
12 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15

3.3. Discussion

Shown a threefold, ambiguous motion event involving a hand, animal, and ball and providing
spatiotemporal cues to causality, infants ascribed the potential for self-initiated motion to either the
hand or the animal (attributing somewhat more “explanatory power” to the hand, as indicated by
the higher mean differences between the two clusters regarding the hand variable; Table 4). This is
noteworthy, given the assumption that infants are better familiarized to human hands as agents (Leslie,
1984b). The fact that a spatiotemporally ambiguous motion event involving all three entities does not
automatically activate expectations regarding the hand’s future movements suggests that the findings
cannot be explained by the application of a simple associative rule. When another potentially self-
propelled entity (an unfamiliar animal) was shown (Experiment 2), infants used dispositional status
information when forming expectations about the objects’ future movements. Some of the infants
favored the human hand, and others the animal.
It is worthwhile to compare absolute looking time values between Experiment 1 (Table 1) and
Experiment 2 (Table 4). Infants in Experiment 1 show a clear shift in looking preferences in favour of
one entity (the animal in the hover condition, the hand in the guiding condition), with looking times
for the other two entities remaining relatively constant. In contrast, infants in Experiment 2 who
shifted their looking preferences toward the hand showed a decrease in their looking preferences for
the animal, and vice versa. Infants in Experiment 2 may have made a clear decision in favour of one
of the entities and, simultaneously, a decision against the other potential cause of motion. If so, this
suggests that infants are able to engage in a flexible reasoning process involving multiple entities in
order to disambiguate rather complex motion events.

4. General discussion

Two experiments provide data suggesting that 7-month-old infants are able to reason about
ambiguous motion events by combining dispositional status information about the objects with
causally relevant spatiotemporal information. The studies build on earlier work by Pauen and Träuble
(2009), who demonstrated that infants who see an unfamiliar animal and a ball moving together
in an apparently animate way use dispositional status information to attribute the origin of that
motion to the animal. Extending this research, we investigated 7-month-olds’ inferences in a motion
event involving three instead of only two entities. In addition, spatiotemporal relations were varied
systematically.
As demonstrated by Experiment 1, infants do not expect the animal to show self-initiated motion
after a human hand grasps the animal and ball and moves them together (guiding condition). After
perceiving two potentially self-propelled entities (hand and animal), infants preferred to look at the
entity that provided dispositional and spatiotemporal cues to motion initiation. In the guiding condi-
tion this was the human hand, which entered the stage and picked up the animal. However, when the
hand moved parallel to but at some distance from the animal and the ball (hover condition), infants
attributed the origin of the conjoint motion to the animal, replicating the findings of the original study
by Pauen and Träuble (2009). Since the conditions only varied with respect to spatiotemporal relations,
it seems clear that spatiotemporal relations are critical to explaining the discrepancy in performance.
Infants’ preference for the animal in the hover condition reveals that dispositional status information
gains importance when spatiotemporal information is ambiguous. The animal was assumed more
likely to have initiated the motion, presumably because its appearance activated knowledge about
the movement potential of animate beings.
Experiment 2 further explored infants’ expectations regarding objects’ movement potential by
presenting all three (animal, ball, hand) in conjoint motion. Shown this threefold, ambiguous motion
event, infants were still able to combine their knowledge about the origin of motion with their knowl-
edge about dispositional properties of objects. Since dispositional status information suggested that
two alternative “motion originators” were available (animal and hand), infants showed their prefer-
ence either in favour of the hand or in favour of the animal.
Based on a comparison between experiments, we can rule out that one subgroup of infants partic-
ipating in Experiment 2 shifted their looking preference toward the hand, simply because the hand
 B. Träuble, S. Pauen / Cognitive Development 26 (2011) 1–15 13

(and arm) occupied more of the stage than the animal. If this was true, then infants should have also
looked longer at the hand in Scene 1. Instead, the hand appeared to be of little interest to infants at that
time. This was true for Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. One might propose that the hand is of special
interest only when shown in motion (i.e., during Scene 2). Note, however, that the arm and hand per-
formed a highly similar motion during Scene 2 in both the hover and guiding conditions of Experiment
1, but infants only shifted their looking preference toward the hand in the guiding condition.
Arguing in an opposing direction, one may posit that the second subgroup’s shift in preference
toward the animal (Experiment 2) could have occurred because the hand was not salient enough to
draw infants’ attention to it. If so, infants participating in the guiding condition of Experiment 1 should
also have shifted their looking preference toward the animal, as the hand’s pattern of motion was the
same as in Experiment 2.
In sum, our findings cannot be explained by differences in the salience of either the objects them-
selves or their motion patterns. Rather, infants determine which object caused the motion using
spatiotemporal cues, and, if corresponding information is unavailable or ambiguous, by using existing
knowledge to infer the dispositional status of the objects involved based on perceptual features (static
and dynamic).
Our experimental paradigm does not allow us to clarify whether infants analyzed a motion event
by combining spatiotemporal and/or dispositional status information for each object separately and
determining its likelihood to cause motion, or by asking “who is doing what to whom,” thereby acti-
vating a concept of agency with its own skeletal causal framework (Gergely & Csibra, 2003; Leslie,
1995; Luo & Baillargeon, 2007; Premack & Premack, 1995). The latter process would require analysis
of the relations and interactions between objects, whereas the former would entail a focus on the
causal role of each object separately. In any case, we can conclude that object information affects
causal attributions in infancy (Oakes & Cohen, 1995; Pauen & Träuble, 2009; Saxe et al., 2005). We
thus need to better understand how such information interacts with spatiotemporal cues to explain
motion attribution at a preverbal age.
In sum, 7-month-olds are able to integrate different types of causally relevant information in a
flexible manner. When spatiotemporal information is unavailable, infants consider objects’ disposi-
tional status in order to determine the origin of motion in a given motion event (Experiment 1 hover
condition and Experiment 2). If one of two dispositional “motion originators” also provides spatiotem-
poral cues identifying it as potential source of motion, infants are more likely to ascribe potential for
future movements to that entity (Experiment 1 guiding condition). One may ask whether spatiotem-
poral information has some privileged status in the sense that it generally seems to overwrite object
information. Our results do not allow a definite answer to this question. How dispositional status infor-
mation and spatiotemporal cues differ in salience, and whether they have differing impacts on infants’
reasoning about complex motion events under specific circumstances, requires further investigation.
Events in the natural environment often involve interactions between moving entities. Ambiguous
motion events, threefold interactions, or multiple self-propelled objects acting in parallel are not the
exception, but rather the rule. To understand how infants make sense of such situations, we need to
explore what types of motion events catch their attention and engage them in reasoning processes.
Based on our own findings and on previous studies (Saxe et al., 2005), we conclude that infants less
than 1 year of age integrate different types of causally relevant information flexibly in order to make
sense of complex, ambiguous motion events involving different types of entities.

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