The aim of Experiment 1 was to assess how 12-month-olds perceive a give-me gesture in the
context of a give-and-take interaction between two individuals. We hypothesized that infants would
fixate on the give-me gesture earlier than they fixated on the inverted hand shape. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the latencies of infants’ goal-directed gaze shifts are significantly shorter when the
receiving hand formed a give-me gesture relative to when the hand formed an inverted shape. It is also
noteworthy that the difference in infants’ gaze behavior was evident from the first trial onward, demonstrating that infants’ sensitivity to give-me gestures was not based on learning the consequences of the passing hand within the experimental session. In sum, these results suggest that 1-year-olds are
able to differentiate give-me gestures from other visually similar but non-functional hand shapes when observing a give-and-take interaction.