"A woman reaches over a TV to grasp an object behind it." This action shows a distinctive arm motion, but also represents an ordinary intentional act: the woman is trying to get the object. Understanding persons as intentional agents - with goals, desires, beliefs, emotions - is a hallmark human achievement. Indeed, adults and older children understand persons in terms of an everyday "theory of mind;" we construe people in terms of their inner mental states, beliefs, desires, hopes and plans that shape and lead to overt action. Even 2- and 3-year-olds understand persons as intentional actors - agents whose intentions and desires shape external goal-directed action. Someone impaired in this sort of intentional understanding is greatly impaired in social life, communication, and interaction with others, as for example are individuals with autism. With support of the NSF, Dr. Wellman will conduct research with infants examining the origin and development of our human understanding of intentional agents and acts. When do infants first understand actions as more than simply physical motions, and instead as intentional? How do early understandings in infancy develop into the later, more sophisticated person understandings of toddlers and preschoolers? The studies combine three different innovative and rigorous methods: careful analyses of infant attention, careful analyses of adult-infant interaction, and continued examination of the infant participants when they become toddlers and preschoolers.
The aim of this research is to illuminate how we become distinctively human. The broader impact of the research is that understanding very early developments will also aid our ability to diagnose and work with children who have early social-cognitive impairments. In particular, it will aid in the earlier identification of children with autism and will inform effective social interventions for children with social difficulties.
