Abstract
Infants start to actively point at objects of interest from around their first birthday. This behavior, called "declarative pointing," has been thought to function to redirect others' attention towards an object to express interest in sharing that object with others. However, it remains unknown whether infants' use of declarative pointing is actually based on the understanding that they can share experiences with others. We investigated whether 1-year olds (younger group n=34; older group n=28) changed their pointing behavior according to others' attentional status, and whether they chose target objects based on experiences previously shared with others. The results showed that the older infants stopped pointing soon after the experimenter paid attention to the target object. Moreover, infants who had stopped pointing following the experimenter's attentional shift chose the target object more frequently than they chose other objects. Such choices are construed as based on an understanding of experiences previously shared with the experimenter. The discussion focuses on the developmental relations between declarative pointing and infants' understanding of shared experience.
