Data_Sheet_1_Exploring individual differences in infants’ looking preferences for impossible events: The Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale.pdf

Infants are drawn to events that violate their expectations about the world: they look longer at physically impossible events, such as when a car passes through a wall. Here, we examined whether individual differences in infants’ visual preferences for physically impossible events reflect an early form of curiosity, and asked whether caregivers’ behaviors, parenting styles, and everyday routines relate to these differences. In Study 1, we presented infants (N = 47, Mage = 16.83 months, range = 10.29–24.59 months) with events that violated physical principles and closely matched possible events. We measured infants’ everyday curiosity and related experiences (i.e., caregiver curiosity-promoting activities) through a newly developed curiosity scale, The Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale (EMCS). Infants’ looking preferences for physically impossible events were positively associated with their score on the EMCS, but not their temperament, vocabulary, or caregiver trait curiosity. In Study 2A, we set out to better understand the relation between the EMCS and infants’ looking preferences for physically impossible events by assessing the underlying structure of the EMCS with a larger sample of children (N = 211, Mage = 47.63 months, range = 10.29–78.97 months). An exploratory factor analysis revealed that children’s curiosity was comprised four factors: Social Curiosity, Broad Exploration, Persistence, and Information-Seeking. Relatedly, caregiver curiosity-promoting activities were composed of five factors: Flexible Problem-Solving, Cognitive Stimulation, Diverse Daily Activities, Child-Directed Play, and Awe-Inducing Activities. In Study 2B (N = 42 infants from Study 1), we examined which aspects of infant curiosity and caregiver behavior predicted infants’ looking preferences using the factor structures of the EMCS. Findings revealed that infants’ looking preferences were uniquely related to infants’ Broad Exploration and caregivers’ Awe-Inducing Activities (e.g., nature walks with infants, museum outings). These exploratory findings indicate that infants’ visual preferences for physically impossible events may reflect an early form of curiosity, which is related to the curiosity-stimulating environments provided by caregivers. Moreover, this work offers a new comprehensive tool, the Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale, that can be used to measure both curiosity and factors related to its development, starting in infancy and extending into childhood.

婴幼儿倾向于关注那些违背其对世界期待的事件：他们会对诸如汽车穿越墙壁等物理上不可能发生的事件进行更长时间的观察。在本研究中，我们探讨了婴幼儿对物理上不可能发生的事件的视觉偏好是否存在早期好奇心的表现，并询问照料者的行为、育儿方式和日常习惯是否与这些差异相关。在第一项研究中，我们向47名婴幼儿（平均月龄为16.83个月，范围在10.29至24.59个月之间）展示了违反物理定律的事件，这些事件与可能发生的事件紧密匹配。通过新开发的早期多维好奇心量表（Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale, EMCS）测量了婴幼儿的日常好奇心和相关经验（即照料者促进好奇心的活动）。婴幼儿对物理上不可能发生的事件的观察偏好与他们在EMCS上的得分呈正相关，但与其气质、词汇量或照料者的好奇心特质无关。在第二项研究A中，我们通过评估更大样本儿童（N=211，平均月龄为47.63个月，范围在10.29至78.97个月之间）的EMCS的潜在结构，旨在更深入地理解EMCS与婴幼儿对物理上不可能发生的事件的观察偏好之间的关系。探索性因素分析揭示了儿童的好奇心由四个因素组成：社会好奇心、广泛探索、坚持性和信息寻求。相应地，照料者促进好奇心的活动由五个因素组成：灵活问题解决、认知刺激、多样化的日常活动、以儿童为导向的游戏和引人入胜的活动。在第二项研究B中（N=42名来自第一项研究的婴幼儿），我们通过使用EMCS的因素结构，探讨了婴幼儿好奇心和照料者行为的哪些方面可以预测婴幼儿的观察偏好。研究结果揭示了婴幼儿的观察偏好与他们的广泛探索和照料者的引人入胜活动（例如，与婴幼儿一起进行的自然散步、博物馆之旅）有独特的相关性。这些探索性发现表明，婴幼儿对物理上不可能发生的事件的视觉偏好可能反映了早期好奇心的形式，这与照料者提供的好奇心激发环境相关。此外，本研究提供了一种新的综合性工具——早期多维好奇心量表，可以用来衡量好奇心及其发展相关的因素，从婴儿期开始，延伸至儿童期。