Begus K, Gliga T, Southgate V (2014) Infants Learn What They Want to Learn: Responding to Infant Pointing Leads to Superior Learning. PLoS ONE 9(10): e108817. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108817  Full article

Stahl, A. E., & Feigenson, L. (2015). Observing the unexpected enhances infants’ learning and exploration. Science (New York, N.Y.), 348(6230), 91–94. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa3799

Given the overwhelming quantity of information available from the environment, how do young learners know what to learn about and what to ignore? We found that 11-month-old infants (N = 110) used violations of prior expectations as special opportunities for learning. The infants were shown events that violated expectations about object behavior or events that were nearly identical but did not violate expectations. The sight of an object that violated expectations enhanced learning and promoted information-seeking behaviors; specifically, infants learned more effectively about objects that committed violations, explored those objects more, and engaged in hypothesis-testing behaviors that reflected the particular kind of violation seen. Thus, early in life, expectancy violations offer a wedge into the problem of what to learn.

Zosh, J. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Hopkins, E. J., Jensen, H., Liu, C., Neale, D., … Whitebread, D. (2018). Accessing the Inaccessible: Redefining Play as a Spectrum. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1124. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01124

Defining play has plagued researchers and philosophers for years. From describing play as an inaccessible concept due to its complexity, to providing checklists of features, the field has struggled with how to conceptualize and operationalize “play.” This theoretical piece reviews the literature about both play and learning and suggests that by viewing play as a spectrum – that ranges from free play (no guidance or support) to guided play and games (including purposeful adult support while maintaining playful elements), we better capture the true essence of play and explain its relationship to learning. Insights from the Science of Learning allow us to better understand why play supports learning across social and academic domains. By changing the lens through which we conceptualize play, we account for previous findings in a cohesive way while also proposing new avenues of exploration for the field to study the role of learning through play across age and context.

Gredebäck, G., Lindskog, M., Juvrud, J. C., Green, D., & Marciszko, C. (2018). Action Prediction Allows Hypothesis Testing via Internal Forward Models at 6 Months of Age. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 290. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00290

We propose that action prediction provides a cornerstone in a learning process known as internal forward models. According to this suggestion infants’ predictions (looking to the mouth of someone moving a spoon upward) will moments later be validated or proven false (spoon was in fact directed toward a bowl), information that is directly perceived as the distance between the predicted and actual goal. Using an individual difference approach we demonstrate that action prediction correlates with the tendency to react with surprise when social interactions are not acted out as expected (action evaluation). This association is demonstrated across tasks and in a large sample (n = 118) at 6 months of age. These results provide the first indication that infants might rely on internal forward models to structure their social world. Additional analysis, consistent with prior work and assumptions from embodied cognition, demonstrates that the latency of infants’ action predictions correlate with the infant’s own manual proficiency.

Gredebäck, G., Lindskog, M., Juvrud, J. C., Green, D., & Marciszko, C. (2018). Action Prediction Allows Hypothesis Testing via Internal Forward Models at 6 Months of Age. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 290. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00290

We propose that action prediction provides a cornerstone in a learning process known as internal forward models. According to this suggestion infants’ predictions (looking to the mouth of someone moving a spoon upward) will moments later be validated or proven false (spoon was in fact directed toward a bowl), information that is directly perceived as the distance between the predicted and actual goal. Using an individual difference approach we demonstrate that action prediction correlates with the tendency to react with surprise when social interactions are not acted out as expected (action evaluation). This association is demonstrated across tasks and in a large sample (n = 118) at 6 months of age. These results provide the first indication that infants might rely on internal forward models to structure their social world. Additional analysis, consistent with prior work and assumptions from embodied cognition, demonstrates that the latency of infants’ action predictions correlate with the infant’s own manual proficiency.

Zuccarini M, Sansavini A, Iverson JM, Savini S, Guarini A, Alessandroni R, Faldella G, Aureli T. Object engagement and manipulation in extremely preterm and full term infants at 6 months of age. Res Dev Disabil. 2016 Aug;55:173-84. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2016.04.001. Epub 2016 Apr 18. PubMed PMID: 27101093.

Schmidt, L., Braun, E. K., Wager, T. D., & Shohamy, D. (2014). Mind matters: Placebo enhances reward learning in Parkinson’s disease. Nature Neuroscience, 17(12), 1793–1797. http://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3842   

Expectations have a powerful influence on how we experience the world. Neurobiological and computational models of learning suggest that dopamine is crucial for shaping expectations of reward and that expectations alone may influence dopamine levels. However, because expectations and reinforcers are typically manipulated together, the role of expectations per se has remained unclear. Here, we separated these two factors using a placebo dopaminergic manipulation in Parkinson’s patients. We combined a reward learning task with fMRI to test how expectations of dopamine release modulate learning-related activity in the brain. We found that the mere expectation of dopamine release enhances reward learning and modulates learning-related signals in the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These effects were selective to learning from reward: neither medication nor placebo had an effect on learning to avoid monetary loss. These findings suggest a neurobiological mechanism by which expectations shape learning and affect.

Libertus, K., Joh, A. S., & Needham, A. (2016). Motor training at three months affects object exploration 12 months later. Developmental Science, 19(6), 1058–1066. http://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12370