The Infant as Onlooker: Learning From Emotional Reactions Observed in a Television Scenario

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Abstract
Two studies investigated whether 10– and 12–month–olds can use televised emotional reactions to guide their behavior. Infants watched an actress orient toward 1 of 2 novel objects and react with neutral affect during baseline and with positive or negative affect during test. Infants then had 30 s to interact with the objects. In Study 1, 12–month–olds (N = 32) avoided the target object and showed increases in negative affect after observing the negative–emotion scenario. Twelve–month–olds’ responses to positive vs. neutral signals did not differ significantly. In Study 2, 10–month–olds (N = 32) attended to the televised presentations but showed no consistent changes in their object interactions or affect. Thus, 12–month–olds used social information presented on television and associated emotional signals with the intended target.