(c) John Benjamins Delivered by Ingenta on: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:39:55 to: Max-Planck-Institut fur evolutionare Anthropologie IP: 194.94.96.194 Interaction Studies 7:2 (2006), 233–250. issn 1572–0373 / e-issn 1572–0381 © John Benjamins Publishing Company Selective looking by 12-month-olds to a temporally contingent partner* Tricia Striano 1,2,3,4 , Anne Henning 1 , and Amrisha Vaish 1 1 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology / 2 Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences / 3 University Leipzig, Center for Advanced Studies, Developmental Sciences, Leipzig, Germany / 4 Vanderbilt University, Department of Pediatrics and Kennedy Center for Human Development, Nashville, USA Twelve-month-old infants interacted with two strangers in a free-play context. In the Experimental condition (n = 17), one stranger (Contingent partner) vocally responded immediately to infants’ looks towards her, whereas the other (Non-contingent partner) was yoked to the Contingent partner with a 1-, 2-, or 3-s delay. In the Control condition (n = 17), the Non- Contingent partner emitted the first vocalization and other non-contingent vocalizations during the free play session. he Contingent partner acted the same as in the Experimental condition. When a novel event occurred ater the free-play session, infants looked significantly more to the Contingent partner regardless of condition. he study highlights infants’ selective look- ing to temporally contingent partners in novel situations. Keywords: social referencing, infant, timing, triadic interaction, dyadic interaction Infants learn to guide their behavior, in part, by watching people and gather- ing relevant information from them (Baldwin & Moses, 1996; Feinman, 1982). From an early inclination to monitor others in the context of face-to-face inter- action (e.g., Fantz, 1963; Wolff, 1987), infants look to other people in increas- ingly referential ways as they coordinate their attention between people and objects (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984; Carpenter, Nagell, & Tomasello, 1998; Striano & Rochat, 1999). he emergence of such referential gazing across a variety of contexts is thought to mediate some unique forms of human cogni- tion. With increased referential gazing, infants gain much opportunity to learn about language and the world around them.