Infants' Orientation to Adults' Hand and the Development of Object Performance

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of infants' orientation to an adults hand in the development of object performance. Four experiment were designed to clarify, (1) the relationship between infant's orientation to the experimenter's hand during the presentation (the experimenter put a red miniature toy car into a small red carton tunnel or a small transparent tunnel, pushed a red bamboo hammer into the tunnel and took out the toy car) and object preformance as tool using, (2) relationship between object performance level and combining two objects, and (3) the translation of infant's orientation to an adult's face into an adult's hand. In the first and second experiments, infants in the second half of the first year paricipated, and in the third experiment, 3,4 months old infants took part.The main results are as follows ; (1) looking up at the experimentser's face was often observed among 6,7 months old infants with lower performance level, (2) infant's orientation to the experimenter's hand and object performance were related closely when the factor of age was controlled, (3) level of object performance and combining two objects were related closely when factor of age was controlled, (4) infants at a higher performance level seem to recognize the relationship of two objects through the action of pulling the stick, or pushing the hammer, and it relates the perception of causality, (5) when using the transparent tunnel, higher level of performances were much more observed in all age groups, even the infants in the youngest group (6-7 months old) try to combine the two objects, and (6) the translation of infant'orientation to an adult's face into an adult's hand seems to relate to infant's recognition of the moving face during object performance.