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Origins of Mind

A Puzzle about Pointing

Lecturer: Stephen A. Butterfill

Pointing in infancy is nonlinguistic, purposively communicative and referential. We know this because 18- and 14-month-old infants point to request things, inform others about things, and to initiate joint engagement (Liszkowski, 2007). But what model of communication characterises infants’ production and comprehension of pointing gestures? This question is a puzzle insofar as the standard (Gricean) answer is both problematic and apparently well-supported by evidence.

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Why Pointing?

‘Pointing may […] represent a key transition, both phylogenetically and ontogenetically, from nonlinguistic to linguistic forms of human communication.’ (Tomasello, Carpenter, & Liszkowski, 2007, p. \ 720)

Pointing in Infancy: The Basics

Because infants’ pointing is sensitive to another’s ignorance (Liszkowski, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2008) and false belief (Knudsen & Liszkowski, 2012) from around 18 months of age or earlier, we may suppose that pointing in infancy is purposively communicative. That is, in pointing it is part of the infant’s purpose to communicate.

Pointing actions by twelve-month-olds are referential. Rather than merely drawing attention to themselves, infants are performing a communicative action which involves both an addressee and an event or object (Liszkowski, Carpenter, Henning, Striano, & Tomasello, 2004).

Infants also use context in interpreting pointing actions. For instance, 18-month-olds (but not 14-month-olds) interpret the same pointing action differently when it occurs in the context of a game and than it occurs in the context of tidying up (Liebal, Behne, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2009, p. Experiment 1).

What Model of Communication Characterises Pointing in Infancy?

Moll & Tomasello (2007) as well as Csibra (2010) independently suggest that the model of communication which characterises infants’ production and comprehension of pointing gestures must incorporate communicative intention.1 But what is a communicative intention?

Grice’s view, put very roughly, is that a communicative intention is an intention to provide someone with evidence of an intention with the further intention of thereby fulfilling that intention (Grice, 1989, p. chapter 14). And a communicative action is one performed with a communicative intention.

To illustrate, apply imagine someone pointing to one of two boxes to indicate that you should open this box. On a Gricean account she intends:

  1. that you open the left box;

  2. that you recognize that she intends (1), that you open the left box; and

  3. that your recognition that she intends (1) will be among your reasons for opening the left box.

An Inconsistent Tetrad

  1. 11- or 12-month-old infants produce and comprehend declarative pointing gestures.
  2. Producing or comprehending pointing gestures involves understanding communicative actions.
  3. A communicative action is an action done with an intention to provide someone with evidence of an intention with the further intention of thereby fulfilling that intention.
  4. Pointing facilitates the developmental emergence of sophisticated cognitive abilities including mindreading

Glossary

block--slab model : The block--slab model is a model of communication on which each word or gesture has a fixed use or fixed set of uses.
communicative intention : A communicative intention is an intention to communicate, as opposed to an intention to achieve some extra-communicative end (such as getting you to pass me the salt).
Gricean model : On the Gricean model of communication, to produce a communicative action involves acting with an intention to provide someone with evidence of an intention with the further intention of thereby fulfilling that intention. And to comprehend a communicative action is to know that the communicator has such intentions.
model of communication : A model of communication is a way communication could be.

References

Begus, K., & Southgate, V. (2012). Infant pointing serves an interrogative function. Developmental Science, 15(5), 611–617. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01160.x
Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2005). One-year-olds comprehend the communicative intentions behind gestures in a hiding game. Developmental Science, 8(6), 492–499.
Csibra, G. (2010). Recognizing communicative intentions in infancy. Mind & Language, 25(2), 141–168. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2009.01384.x
Grice, P. (1969). Utterer’s meaning and intention. The Philosophical Review, 78(2), 147–177.
Grice, P. (1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, Mass ; London: Harvard University Press.
Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2004). Chimpanzees are more skilful in competitive than in cooperative cognitive tasks. Animal Behaviour, 68(3), 571–581. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2003.11.011
Knudsen, B., & Liszkowski, U. (2012). 18-Month-Olds predict specific action mistakes through attribution of false belief, not ignorance, and intervene accordingly. Infancy, 17, 672–691. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2011.00105.x
Liebal, K., Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Infants use shared experience to interpret a pointing gesture. Developmental Science, 12(2), 264–271.
Liszkowski, U. (2007). Infant pointing at 12 months: Communicative goals, motives, and social-cognitive abilities. In N. J. Enfield & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 153–178). London: Berg.
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., Henning, A., Striano, T., & Tomasello, M. (2004). Twelve-month-olds point to share attention and interest. Developmental Science, 7(3), 297–307.
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., Striano, T., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Twelve- and 18-month-olds point to provide information for others. Journal of Cognition and Development, 7(2), 173–187.
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriately for knowledgeable and ignorant partners. Cognition, 108(3), 732–739.
Lucca, K., & Wilbourn, M. P. (2018). Communicating to Learn: Infants’ Pointing Gestures Result in Optimal Learning. Child Development, 89(3), 941–960. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12707
Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Cooperation and human cognition: The vygotskian intelligence hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 362(1480), 639–648.
Neale, S. (1992). Paul grice and the philosophy of language. Linguistics and Philosophy, 15, 509–559.
Tomasello, M. (2006). Why don’t apes point? In N. J. Enfield & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 506–524). Oxford: Berg.
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., & Liszkowski, U. (2007). A new look at infant pointing. Child Development, 78(3), 705–722.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.

Endnotes

  1. Moll & Tomasello (2007, p. 6): ‘to understand pointing, the subject needs to understand more than the individual goal-directed behaviour. She needs to understand that by pointing towards a location, the other attempts to communicate to her where a desired object is located.’ See also Tomasello et al. (2007, p. 706): ‘infant pointing is best understood—on many levels and in many ways—as depending on uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation and shared intentionality, which enable such things as joint intentions and joint attention in truly collaborative interactions with others (Bratman, 1992; Searle, 1995).’ ↩