THE VERY YOUNG CHILDREN'S COMPREHENSION OF THE UNUSUAL AGENT-ACTION INSTRUCTIONS

The Exp. 1 examined the responses of 37 infants below 30 months of age, when given unusual two-word instructions, composed of an object (agent)-and an action-word in Japanese such as put the car to bed, feed the ball, and so on. The children were presented a pair of toys-an appropriate inanimate object (a miniature car or a ball) and a perplexing animate one (a doll or an animal toy). Children over 21 months performed correct responses on an average of 5 out of 8 trials. At around 18 months children carried out the appropriate action with a perplexing object such as a reverse response. These changes of responses were ensured by a longitudinal experiment (Exp. 2). This study showed that the knowledge of an animate agent such as eating or sleeping has already existed at around 18 months and that the strategy based on such knowledge disappeared at around 24 months.