Book contents
- Pointing
- Pointing
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction to Pointing:
- Part One Culture and Development
- 1 Pointing at, Talking about, and Looking Away:
- 2 The Design of Pointing
- 3 Development of Pointing in Toddlers:
- 4 Attention Management by Deictic Gestures and Demonstratives:
- 5 Pointing to Dinner Participants in Deaf and Hearing Children’s and Adults’ Signing and Gesturing
- 6 The Cultural Nature of Early Social Communication
- 7 Pointing at Local Knowledge:
- 8 The Role of Infant Pointing in Child-Led Caregiving:
- 9 How Infants Learn to Follow Attention from Gaze-Direction and Pointing Gestures
- 10 Touch, Pointing and Mind-Reading
- 11 Socially Signaling Robotics:
- 12 Developmental Significance of the Human Pointing Gesture
- Part Two Evolutionary Perspectives
- Index
- References
10 - Touch, Pointing and Mind-Reading
from Part One - Culture and Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2026
Book contents
- Pointing
- Pointing
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction to Pointing:
- Part One Culture and Development
- 1 Pointing at, Talking about, and Looking Away:
- 2 The Design of Pointing
- 3 Development of Pointing in Toddlers:
- 4 Attention Management by Deictic Gestures and Demonstratives:
- 5 Pointing to Dinner Participants in Deaf and Hearing Children’s and Adults’ Signing and Gesturing
- 6 The Cultural Nature of Early Social Communication
- 7 Pointing at Local Knowledge:
- 8 The Role of Infant Pointing in Child-Led Caregiving:
- 9 How Infants Learn to Follow Attention from Gaze-Direction and Pointing Gestures
- 10 Touch, Pointing and Mind-Reading
- 11 Socially Signaling Robotics:
- 12 Developmental Significance of the Human Pointing Gesture
- Part Two Evolutionary Perspectives
- Index
- References
Summary
Pointing, and the joint attention between agents that it establishes, play a foundational role in human communication and cooperation. How this capacity emerges is therefore a central question for our understanding of human development and evolution. Here we face two mysteries. The first is where does pointing come from. There are many candidates in early infancy that could be precursors of pointing – including reaching, touching, and copying others. The second is how does pointing support infants’ understanding of others’ communicative intentions, which seems, paradoxically, to develop after pointing has emerged. This chapter argues that some automatic aspects of human behaviour – namely touch exploration in infants, and adults’ automatic tendency to look at what they touch – lead to early pointing behaviour. This process does not initially require either the infant or the adult to infer each other’s intentions, providing a cognitively lean account of pointing. Once this behaviour begins, it sets up a ‘joint attention triangle’ between agents that provides a natural platform for our understanding of others’ communicative intentions to develop.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- PointingCulture, Development, and Evolution, pp. 192 - 210Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
Audi, R. (1984). Dispositional beliefs and dispositions to believe. Noûs, 28(4), 419–434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bard, K. A., Dunbar, S., Maguire-Herring, V., Veira, Y., Hayes, K. G., & McDonald, K. (2014). Gestures and social–emotional communicative development in chimpanzee infants. American Journal of Primatology, 76(1), 14–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, E. (1979). The emergence of symbols: Cognition and communication in infancy. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Carpendale, J. I. M., & Carpendale, A. B. (2010). The development of pointing: From personal directedness to interpersonal direction. Human Development, 53, 110–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, M., & Liebal, K. (2011). Joint attention, communication, and knowing together in infancy. In Seemann, A. (Ed.), Joint attention: New developments in psychology, philosophy of mind, and social neuroscience (pp. 159–181). MIT Press.Google Scholar
Carpenter, M., Tomasello, M., & Striano, T. (2005). Role reversal imitation and language in typically developing infants and children with autism. Infancy, 8(3), 253–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V., & Sengul, C. J. (1978). Strategies in the acquisition of deixis. Journal of Child Language, 5(3), 457–475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cochet, H., & Vauclair, J. (2010). Pointing gestures produced by toddlers from 15 to 30 months: Different functions, hand shapes, and laterality patterns. Infant Behavior and Development, 33, 431–441.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corniani, G., & Saal, H. P. (2020). Tactile innervation densities across the whole body. Journal of Neurophysiology, 124(4), 1229–1240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gergely, G., Nádasdy, Z., Csibra, G., & Bíró, S. (1995). Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age. Cognition, 56(2), 165–193.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gonzalez, F., Gosselin, F., & Bachta, W. (2014). Analysis of hand contact areas and interaction capabilities during manipulation and exploration. IEEE Trans Haptics, 1412, 415–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, K. E., Rossano, F., & Moore, R. T. (2025). The origin of great ape gestural forms. Biological Reviews, 100(1), 190–204.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grant, A. C., Fernandez, R., Shilian, P., Yanni, E., & Hill, M. A. (2006). Tactile spatial acuity differs between fingers: A study comparing two testing paradigms. Perception & Psychophysics, 68, 1359–1362.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Halina, M., Rossano, F., & Tomasello, M. (2013). The ontogenetic ritualization of bonobo gestures. Animal Cognition, 16, 653–666.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hewes, G. W. (1996). A history of the study of language origins and the gestural primacy hypothesis. In Lock, A. & Peters, C. R. (Eds.), Handbook of human symbolic evolution (pp. 571–595). Clarendon.Google Scholar
Heyes, C. (2018). Cognitive gadgets: The cultural evolution of thinking. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Jartó, M., & Liszkowski, U. (2021). Inferring hidden objects from still and communicative onlookers at 8, 14, and 36 months of age. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 207, 105115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kersken, V., Gomez, J. C., Liszkowski, U., Soldati, A., & Hobaiter, C. (2019). A gestural repertoire of 1- to 2-year-old human children: In search of the ape gestures. Animal Cognition, 22, 577–595.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kettner, V. A., & Carpendale, J. I. (2018). From touching to communicating: Forms of index finger use in the development of pointing. Gesture, 17(2), 245–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kita, S. (2003). Pointing: A foundational building block of human communication. In Kita, S. (Ed.), Pointing: Where language, culture and cognition meet (pp. 9–16). Laurence Erlbaum and Associates.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krause, M. A., Udell, M. A., Leavens, D. A., & Skopos, L. (2018). Animal pointing: Changing trends and findings from 30 years of research. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 132(3), 326.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lemasson, A., Ouattara, K., Petit, E. J., & Zuberbühler, K. (2011). Social learning of vocal structure in a nonhuman primate? BMC Evolutionary Biology, 11, 362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liszkowski, U., Brown, P., Callaghan, T., Takada, A., & de Vos, C. (2012). A prelinguistic gestural universal of human communication. Cognitive Science, 36(4), 698–713.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., Striano, T., & Tomasello, M. (2006). 12- and 18-month-olds point to provide information for others. Journal of Cognition and Development, 7(2), 173–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2007a). Pointing out new news, old news, and absent referents at 12 months of age. Developmental Science, 10(2), 1–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2007b). Reference and attitude in infant pointing. Journal of Child Language, 34(1), 1–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liszkowski, U., & Rüther, J. (2021). Ontogenetic origins of infant pointing. In Gontier, N., Lock, A., & Sinha, C. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of human symbolic evolution (pp. 785–810). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lüke, C., Grimminger, A., Rohlfing, K. J., Liszkowski, U., & Ritterfeld, U. (2016). In infants’ hands: Identification of preverbal infants at risk for primary language delay. Child Development, 58(2), 484–492.Google Scholar
Masataka, N. (2003). From index-finger extension to index-finger pointing: Ontogenesis of pointing in preverbal infants. In Kita, S. (Ed.), Pointing: Where language, culture and cognition meet (pp. 69–84). Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Matthews, D., Behne, T., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Origins of the human pointing gesture: A training study. Developmental Science, 15, 817–829.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moll, H., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2011). Perspective-taking and its foundation in joint attention. In Roessler, J., Lerman, H., & Eilan, N. (Eds.), Joint attention: New developments in psychology, philosophy of mind, and social neuroscience (pp. 286–304). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Co-operation and human cognition: The Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 362, 639–648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, R. (2017a). Gricean communication and cognitive development. The Philosophical Quarterly, 67(267), 303–326.Google Scholar
Moore, R. (2017b). Convergent minds: Ostension, inference and Grice’s third clause. Interface Focus, 7(3), 20160107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neggers, S. F. W., & Beckering, H. (2002). Coordinated control of eye and hand movements in dynamic reaching. Human Movement Science, 21, 349–376.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O’Madagain, C., Kachel, G., & Strickland, B. (2019). The origin of pointing: Evidence for the touch hypothesis. Science Advances, 5(7), eaav2558.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O’Madagain, C., & Tomasello, M. (2021). Joint attention to mental content and the social origin of reasoning. Synthese, 198, 4057–4078.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pätzold, W., & Liszkowski, U. (2019). Pupillometry reveals communication-induced object expectations in 12- but not 8-month-old infants. Developmental Science, 22(6), e12832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Repacholi, B. M., & Gopnik, A. (1997). Early reasoning about desires: Evidence from 14- and 18-month-olds. Developmental Psychology, 33, 12–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rochat, P. (1989). Object manipulation and exploration in 2- to 5-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology, 25, 871–884.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rüther, J., & Liszkowski, U. (2020). Ontogenetic emergence of cognitive reference comprehension. Cognitive Science, 44(7), e12869.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Salomo, D., & Liszkowski, U. (2013). Sociocultural settings influence the emergence of prelinguistic deictic gestures. Child Development, 84(4), 1296–1307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott-Phillips, T., & Heintz, C. (2023). Great ape interaction: Ladyginian but not Gricean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 120(42), e2300243120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D. (2000). Metarepresentations in an evolutionary perspective. In Sperber, D. (Ed.), Metarepresentations: A multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 117–137). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2020b). Why don’t apes point? In Roots of human sociality (pp. 506–524). Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., Call, J., Warren, J., Frost, T., Carpenter, M., & Nagell, K. (1997). The ontogeny of chimpanzee gestural signals: A comparison across groups and generations. Evolution of Communication, 1, 223–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., & Camaioni, L. (1997). A comparison of the gestural communication of apes and human infants. Human Development, 40(1), 7–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., & Farrar, M. J. (1986). Joint attention and early language. Child Development, 57 (6), 1454–1463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cole, M., Jolm-Steiner, V., Scribner, S., & Souberman, E. (Eds.), Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wilkins, D. (2003). Why pointing with the index finger is not a universal (in sociocultural and semiotic terms). In Kita, S. (Ed.), Pointing: Where language, culture and cognition meet (pp. 179–224). Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Woodward, A. L. (1998). Infants selectively encode the goal object of an actor’s reach. Cognition, 69(1), 1–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wundt, W. (1973). The language of gestures. Mouton. (Original Work Published in 1921.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Accessibility standard: WCAG 2.2 AAA
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
The HTML of this chapter
complies with version 2.2 of the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG), offering more comprehensive accessibility measures for a broad range
of users and attains the highest
(AAA)
level of WCAG compliance, optimising the user experience by meeting the most extensive
accessibility guidelines.
Content Navigation
Index navigation
Provides an interactive index, letting you go straight to where a term or subject appears in the text without manual searching.
Provides an interactive index, letting you go straight to where a term or subject appears in the text without manual searching.
Reading Order & Textual Equivalents
Single logical reading order
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
Short alternative textual descriptions
You get concise descriptions (for images, charts, or media clips), ensuring you do not miss crucial information when visual or audio elements are not accessible.
You get concise descriptions (for images, charts, or media clips), ensuring you do not miss crucial information when visual or audio elements are not accessible.
Full alternative textual descriptions
You get more than just short alt text: you have comprehensive text equivalents, transcripts, captions, or audio descriptions for substantial non‐text content, which is especially helpful for complex visuals or multimedia.
You get more than just short alt text: you have comprehensive text equivalents, transcripts, captions, or audio descriptions for substantial non‐text content, which is especially helpful for complex visuals or multimedia.
Visualised data also available as non-graphical data
You can access graphs or charts in a text or tabular format, so you are not excluded if you cannot process visual displays.
You can access graphs or charts in a text or tabular format, so you are not excluded if you cannot process visual displays.
Visual Accessibility
Use of colour is not sole means of conveying information
You will still understand key ideas or prompts without relying solely on colour, which is especially helpful if you have colour vision deficiencies.
You will still understand key ideas or prompts without relying solely on colour, which is especially helpful if you have colour vision deficiencies.
Structural and Technical Features
ARIA roles provided
You gain clarity from ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) roles and attributes, as they help assistive technologies interpret how each part of the content functions.
You gain clarity from ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) roles and attributes, as they help assistive technologies interpret how each part of the content functions.