Abstract

The current study examined whether infants use previous encounters for maintaining expectations for adults’ contingent responding. An unfamiliar adult responded contingently or non-contingently to infant signaling during an initial play situation and 10 min later presented an ambiguous toy while providing positive information (Experiment 1; forty-two 12-month-olds). The infants in the contingent group looked more at the adult during toy presentation and played more with the toy during the concluding free-play situation than the infants in the non-contingent group. When the parent had responded contingently or non-contingently to infant bids (Experiment 2; forty 12-month-olds), the infants in the contingent group tended to look more at the parent and tended to play more with the toy than did the infants in the non-contingent group. The results indicate that from just a brief exposure, infants form expectations about adults’ responsiveness and maintain these expectations of contingent/non-contingent responding from one situation to another.