Investigating the Origins of Intrinsic Motivation in Human Infants
One of the earliest behaviors driven by intrinsic motivation is visual exploration. In this chapter, I highlight how the development of this capacity is influenced not only by changes in the brain that take place after birth but also by the acquisition of
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Abstract One of the earliest behaviors driven by intrinsic motivation is visual exploration. In this chapter, I highlight how the development of this capacity is influenced not only by changes in the brain that take place after birth but also by the acquisition of oculomotor skill. To provide a context for interpreting these developmental changes, I then survey three theoretical perspectives that are available for explaining how and why visual exploration develops. Next, I describe work on the development of perceptual completion, which offers a case study on the development of visual exploration and the role of oculomotor skill. I conclude by discussing a number of challenges and open questions that are suggested by this work.
1 Introduction In contrast to many other species, including gorillas, chimpanzees, and monkeys, human infants are born comparatively helpless and physically immature (Antinucci 1989; Bjorklund 1997). The fact that humans are unable to survive after birth without assistance from others has a number of important consequences. For example, humans have evolved a complex set of caretaking behaviors that promote attachment and emotional bonding between parents and offspring (Bowlby 1969). Another important consequence is that human infants spend the first several months of life relatively immobile: Reaching and grasping do not begin to emerge until age
M. Schlesinger () Department of Psychology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] G. Baldassarre and M. Mirolli (eds.), Intrinsically Motivated Learning in Natural and Artificial Systems, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-32375-1 14, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
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3 months, while crawling develops approximately 5 months later. As a result, there is a strong developmental bias in young infants to begin learning about the physical world by exploring it visually. The goal of this chapter is to highlight the development of visual exploration in human infants, not only as a case study in intrinsic motivation (IM) but also as part of a more general claim that visual exploration is perhaps the earliest expression of many of the essential components of IM (e.g., curiosity, novelty, and surprise). It should be stressed at the outset, however, that the current chapter focuses on a dimension of IM that is somewhat distinct from the way it is conceptualized in the rest of the volume. In particular, here I emphasize IM as a “motor” or “psychological force” that directs or causes behavior. It is a biological mechanism that “kick starts” action in an adaptive way by generating sensorimotor data that are essential for early perceptual and cognitive development. This differs from (but is also highly compatible with) the more conventional view of IM as a mechanism that generates learning signals. Accordingly, the rest of this chapter is organized into four sections. In the first section, I briefly survey the core developmental changes that occur in visual perception during the first year of
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