Data_Sheet_1_12- and 24-Month-Old Infants’ Search Behavior Under Informational Uncertainty.XLSX

Infants register and react to informational uncertainty in the environment. They also form expectations about the probability of future events as well as update the expectation according to changes in the environment. A novel line of research has started to investigate infants’ and toddlers’ behavior under uncertainty. By combining these research areas, the present research investigated 12- and 24-month-old infants’ searching behaviors under varying degree of informational uncertainty. An object was hidden in one of three possible locations and probabilistic information about the hiding location was manipulated across trials. Infants’ time delay in search initiation for a hidden object linearly increased across the level of informational uncertainty. Infants’ successful searching also varied according to probabilistic information. The findings suggest that infants modulate their behaviors based on probabilistic information. We discuss the possibility that infants’ behavioral reaction to the environmental uncertainty constitutes the basis for the development of subjective uncertainty.

婴儿能够感知并对环境中的信息不确定性作出反应，同时还会对未来事件的发生概率形成预期，并依据环境变化更新此类预期。近年来，新兴研究方向开始探索婴儿与学步儿童在不确定情境下的行为表现。本研究整合上述两类研究领域，探究了12月龄与24月龄婴儿在不同程度信息不确定性下的搜索行为。实验中将一件物品藏于三个可选位置之一，并在各实验试次中操控与隐藏位置相关的概率性信息。结果发现，婴儿发起对隐藏物品搜索的延迟时长，随信息不确定性水平呈线性增长；婴儿的搜索成功率同样会随概率性信息的变化而发生改变。本研究结果表明，婴儿会依据概率性信息调整自身行为。本文还探讨了一种可能性：婴儿对环境不确定性的行为反应，是主观不确定性发展的基础。