Four studies investigated whether and when infants connect information about an actor's affect and perception to their action. Arguably, this may be a crucial way in which infants come to recognize the intentional behaviors of others. In Study 1 an actor grasped one of two objects in a situation where cues from the actor's gaze and expression could serve to determine which object would be grasped, specifically the actor first looked at and emoted positively about one object but not the other. Twelve-month-olds, but not 8-month-olds, recognized that the actor was likely to grasp the object which she had visually regarded with positive affect. Studies 2, 3, and 4 replicated the main finding from Study 1 with 12- and 14-month-olds and included several contrasting conditions and controls. These studies provide evidence that the ability to use information about an adult's direction of gaze and emotional expression to predict action is both present, and developing at the end of the first year of life. q 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Over the last 25 years, the seemingly simple still-face phenomenon has elicited a tremendous amount of empirical and theoretical work. Adamson and Frick (2003/this issue) provide a comprehensive review and in-depth analysis of this large body of research. In our commentary, we focus on 3 major points. First, we described several methods to define operationally the still-face effect. Second, we noted the important role of adult touch in the still-face procedure, and that the effect can be reproduced without adult touch, by live, televised and “virtual ” adult faces—making it a true “still-face ” effect. Third, we emphasized a major methodological strength of the still-face procedure: the use of multiple response measures. By measuring both infant visual attention and affect responses, adaptations of the still-face procedure provide infant researchers with a powerful general method for studying the development of infant social competence. Adamson and Frick (2003/this issue) present a comprehensive review of the relatively large body of research over the past 25 years on the still-face effect, following its discovery by Tronick, Als, Adamson, Wise, and Brazelton (1978). Initially it was used to explore dynamic aspects of interactions between infants and caregivers. Recently, infant behavior in the still-face paradigm has been used to identify individual differences related to attachment, temperament, and cognitive vari-