Providing equitable informal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning opportunities to young children from diverse backgrounds may be a way to increase access and interest in STEM and can help to address the broader goal of increasing representation. Importantly, these learning experiences must be meaningful and engage…

The testimony of others and direct experience play a major role in the development of children's knowledge. Children actively use questions to seek others' testimony and explore the environment. It is unclear though whether children distinguish when it is better to ask from when it is better to try to find an answer by oneself. In 2 experiments,…

The authors examined the relation between infants' motor skills and attention to objects features in events in which a hand acted on an object (e.g., squeezed it) that then produced a sound (e.g., squeaking). In this study, 6- to 7-month-old infants (N = 41) were habituated to a single event and then tested with changes in appearance and action.…

This study examined the developing object knowledge of infants through their visual anticipation of action targets during action observation. Infants (6, 8, 12, 14, and 16 months) and adults watched short movies of a person using 3 different everyday objects. Participants were presented with objects being brought either to a correct or to an…

Four experiments examined whether infants' use of task-relevant information in an action task could be facilitated by visual experience in the laboratory. Twelve- but not 9-month-old infants spontaneously used height information and chose an appropriate (taller) cover in search of a hidden tall toy. After watching examples of covering events in a…

This special section was motivated by a resurgence in the view that it is impossible to investigate perceptual and cognitive development without considering how it is affected by, and intertwined with, infants' and children's action in the world. This view has long been foundational to the field, yet contemporary investigations of the effects of…

Using a gaze-following task, the authors assessed whether self-experience with the view-obstructing properties of blindfolds influenced infants' understanding of this effect in others. In Experiment 1, 12-month-olds provided with blindfold self-experience behaved as though they understood that a person wearing a blindfold cannot see. When a…

Tested the generalizability of the specificity model of environmental action to the domain of mastery motivation in infants. Found that the specificity model successfully predicted that aspects of the environment uniquely related to dimensions of mastery motivation, and that infant sex and temperament mediated the relation of environment to…

Prior work suggests that active experience affects infants' understanding of simple actions. The present studies compared the impact of active and observational experience on infants' ability to identify the goal of a novel tool-use event. Infants either received active training and practice in using a cane to retrieve an out-of-reach toy or had…

Results of a study of 10- and 11- month-old infants support Piaget's hypothesis that practical, action-based knowledge during infancy is involved in achievement of spatial understanding and that the experience of self-initiated locomotion contributes to spatial development. (Author/NH)

Two studies involving 108 infants of 6, 9, and 12 months showed that providing infants with multiple action-relevant properties elicits a rich action repertoire. (RJC)