Experimental evidence is beginning to support this view that action and sensorimotor experience
play a key role in cognitive development. Some infant studies have shown that active movement, such
as crawling and walking, facilitates 12-month-olds’ performance in a spatial search task (Acredolo,
Adams, & Goodwyn, 1984) and that 8-month-olds’ locomotor experience predicts their search performance
following a change of perspective (Bai & Bertenthal, 1992). In line with this result, an intervention
study, in which 3-month-olds either were given the opportunity to engage in an object-directed
contact with an object or were not, showed that motor experience can affect infants’ perception and
interpretation of others’ goal-directed actions (Sommerville, Woodward, & Needham, 2005).