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Infants' Understanding of Violations of Expectation: The Role of Social Agents and Repetition

Award Number: R16GM145481
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GENERAL MEDICAL SCIENCES
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 05/10/2022
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 03/31/2027

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Infants' Understanding of Violations of Expectation: The Role of Social Agents and Repetition - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Objectives: Developmental scientists frequently employ the Violation of Expectation (VOE) paradigm to investigate two areas of infant development: cognitive and social-emotional. Cognitive scientists find that infants look at VOEs, while social-emotional researchers find infants smile at VOEs. In addition to conflicting, these findings remain siloed. The two sides also employ different methods suggesting the findings may be methodological artifacts: cognitive researchers present infants with VOEs in which objects appear to behave by themselves, while social-emotion researchers present infants with VOEs in which agents behave with objects. The former may restrict infants to looking simply because the events are out of the range of typical perceptual experience, yet have led to the inference that infants have an innate sense of natural laws. This project will merge these lines of inquiry and extend the dependent measures to include behavioral, affective, and physiological metrics to examine if and how infants distinguish between VOEs, contributing important knowledge about early cognitive and social capacities. Specifically, the project will present infants with VOEs from the cognitive literature but presented using the social-emotional protocol that involves social agents (Specific Aim #1) and repetition (Specific Aim #2), two features that may resolve these problematic discrepancies and explain how infants make sense of VOEs. Design and Methods: In experiment #1, 6-month-olds (N=60) will observe two VOEs taken from the literature (object disappearance & object switch; Baillargeon, 1994a & Dunn & Bremner, 2017, respectively) in which a familiar object (e.g., ball) appears to behave by itself (asocial) or an agent behaves with the object (social) in a 2x2 (social/asocial condition x control/VOE event) mixed factorial design. We expect an interaction effect in which infants exhibit more smiling vs. ,more looking at VOEs performed with or without a social agent, respectively. In experiment #2, another sample of 6-month-olds (N=60) will observe the same VOEs and their corresponding control events (within-s’s factor) as described in experiment #1 but be randomly assigned (between-s’s factor) to single or repeated exposure. We predict more smiling toward VOEs presented with repetition (experimental), and more looking at VOEs without repetition (control). In both experiments we expect smaller ratio of looking and larger ratio of smiling in the social/asocial and repetition/single-exposure conditions, respectively. In both experiments heart rate deceleration is predicted to corroborate visual fixation to VOEs and mean (beats/minute) HR decreases/RSA increases in conjunction with looking and/or smiling.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2026	2025	VERMONT STATE COLLEGES	124 ADMIN DR	RANDOLPH CENTER	VT	05061	ORANGE	USA	Biomedical Research and Research Training	000	4	1/23/2026	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $137,487 )
2025	2025	VERMONT STATE COLLEGES	124 ADMIN DR	RANDOLPH CENTER	VT	05061	ORANGE	USA	Biomedical Research and Research Training	000	4	4/17/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$137,487
														Subtotal = $137,487

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $137,016 )
2024	2024	VERMONT STATE COLLEGES	337 COLLEGE HILL	JOHNSON	VT	05656	LAMOILLE	USA	Biomedical Research and Research Training	000	3	9/20/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$137,016
														Subtotal = $137,016

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $136,553 )
2023	2023	VERMONT STATE COLLEGES	337 COLLEGE HILL	JOHNSON	VT	05656	LAMOILLE	USA	Biomedical Research and Research Training	000	2	3/30/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$136,553
														Subtotal = $136,553

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $136,100 )
2022	2022	VERMONT STATE COLLEGES	337 COLLEGE HILL RD	JOHNSON	VT	05656	LAMOILLE	USA	Biomedical Research and Research Training	000	1	5/3/2022	NEW	$136,100
														Subtotal = $136,100

Grand Total All Awards = $547,156

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Infants' Understanding of Violations of Expectation: The Role of Social Agents and Repetition

Award Number: R16GM145481

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GENERAL MEDICAL SCIENCES

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 05/10/2022

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 03/31/2027

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