Emergence of Agency in Human Infants

How do human beings make sense of their relation to the world and realize their ability to effect change? One of the earliest paradigms for the investigation of infant learning, the so-called mobile conjugate reinforcement (MCR) paradigm, provides an experimental entry point to investigate the origins of agency. Infants begin the MCR procedure as disconnected observers, but when one of their feet is tethered to a mobile hanging above, some infants discover they can make the mobile move. Anecdotal evidence suggests that causal powers are discovered in coordination (Piaget, 1952), but up to now quantifiable signatures of such are wanting. Conscious agency may appear suddenly as an ‘aha!’ experience or gradually, but only a complete dynamical analysis of the experimental arrangement can tell. To this end, we conducted an MCR study with 3-4 month infants and tracked infant and (for the first time) mobile position in 3D space at 100 Hz using a Vicon mocap system. These 3D timeseries are presented here. References: J. Piaget, The origins of intelligence in children, pp. 161. (Norton & Co., 1952).