Norbert Zmyj
TU Dortmund
Infants were reported to prefer delayed feedback of their leg movements to real-time feedback. This has been interpreted as evidence of their sense of agency. We tested the scope of this phenomenon with two novel approaches. In Study 1, we measured the infants’ leg activity. There was a positive relation between leg activity and time spent looking at the delayed video in the first minute, but not over the full four minutes. Additionally, 6-month-old infants did not prefer the delayed video. Study 2 tested another group of 6-month-olds twice; while infants preferred the delayed video at both test points, there was no individual consistency across test points. These results suggest mixed evidence for group-level reliability and no individual-level stability in the preference for delayed over real-time feedback. These findings call for caution in assuming stability of task performance in infant studies in general, and in assuming stability of a sense of agency in infants in particular.
DFG SPP "The Active Self" 