Topic > The study on investigating children's ability to set goals . Previous research has shown that the tendency to identify goals in events emerges relatively early in childhood. The present study therefore aims to delve deeper into the topic and examine what contributes to building children's ability to identify goal structure in action. In particular, researchers focus on how children's experience of direct action can influence their interpretations of events in purposeful ways and vice versa. To answer this question, researchers evaluate children's responses to a person's grasping of objects with or without prior contact with similar objects by measuring looking times and direct contacts with the object. Based on previous research, the authors hypothesize that action experience predicts a significant impact on children's interpretation of goal-directed actions. Specifically, previous studies have described how infants show more surprise when a person changes their goal in reaching for a different toy compared to a change in reaching for the similar toy in a different location, suggesting that young infants are able to identify human actions without relying on perceptual properties and encode these actions with goal-directed understanding. These results lead the authors to hypothesize that previous experiences of an action may contribute to children's ability to attribute a goal to that specific action. Alternative hypotheses would indicate that action experiences do not increase children's tendency to represent goal-directed actions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In the action tasks part of the study, the dependent variable is the proportion of time spent on children's object-directed actions (coordinated gaze and manual contact) and looking at the objects. In the habituation procedure, the dependent variable is the duration of children's gaze with respect to each action-event outcome. The overall independent variable between groups is whether children were assigned to the “rag-first” condition (performing the action task before seeing the habituation event) or the “watch-first” condition (performing the action task after the habituation procedure). Within groups, the independent variable in the habituation procedure is whether children see the new goal event (the actor reaches for a different toy than the one he grasped during habituation) or the new path event (the actor reaches a different position for the same toy he grabbed). in habituation). The independent variable within the group-in-action task is whether children contact the objects while wearing or without gloves. Accordingly, if the experience of the action had an impact on children's ability to interpret the event in a goal-directed manner, then children assigned to the “reach first” condition would look longer at the new goal event than at the new goal event. of the new path because they are surprised by the event. change in the person's goal. Furthermore, if wearing gloves improves children's interaction with objects and thus supports the idea that their understanding of goal structure arises from self-produced action rather than perceptual experience, then childrenengaged in previous action experiences with gloves would show more direct contact with objects. objects and would be able to identify the action of another person wearing the same glove as a goal-directed action. Method Participant Participants in this study included thirty 3-month-old infants, who were randomly assigned to two testing conditions. Ten males and five females were assigned to the first-achievement condition. Nine males and six females were assigned to the surveillance condition. Procedure Infants were initially randomly assigned to one of two conditions, reach first condition or control condition. In the “reach-first” condition, children performed the action task before the habituation procedure, whereas children in the “watch-first” condition performed the reverse order. During the action task, a teddy bear and a ball were placed on the table and children were initially allowed to interact with the objects without any interference for 180 seconds. After the first 180 seconds, the children entered the interaction phase with the gloves. The newborns wore gloves made of special fabric that allowed easier contact with the toys. This time, the children were given 200 seconds to interact with the objects while wearing the gloves. An experimenter blind to the conditions of the experiment coded the children's direct actions with the object and looked at the objects with or without gloves. During the visual habituation procedure, children watched the events shown on the puppet stage. In the habituation phase, the children saw a person wearing the same glove worn by the children in action picking up one of the toys (a teddy bear or a ball) presented next to each other. In the testing phase, the children saw two different outcomes of events. In the New Goal event, the person searched for a different toy than the one used during habituation. In the new route event, the person reached a different location but reached for the same habituation toy). Infants alternately observed a total of six trials related to the outcome of each event, and each trial lasted 120 seconds. An experimenter blind to the conditions of the experiment recorded the duration of the children's gaze with respect to the outcome of each event. Results Habituation Procedure In test trials, there is a significant main effect whereby children looked longer at the new target event than at the new path event with a P Level less than 3%. In the first course condition, a significant interaction with the P level of less than 4% is observed. Children in the first goal condition looked significantly longer at the new goal event with a P level of less than 2%. However, children in the “look first” condition looked at both events the same way without any significant interaction. Findings suggest that contact with objects before seeing an action event improves children's ability to attribute a purpose to that action (Sommerville, Woodward, & Needham, 2005). In both the “rag-first” and “watch-first” conditions, infants spent more time fixating and contacting objects when the gloves were worn with a P level less than 1%. In the reach-first condition, there is a significant correlation between children's object-directed actions (coordinated looking and hand contact), with the objects wearing gloves, and their responses in the new target and new route test events with a lower P level above 4%. However, their responses were not found to correlate..