To use many artifacts and tools effectively, individuals must relate one side of a multi-surfaced object to a particular surface, which results in a desired outcome. Surprisingly, little is known about how and when infants come to relate particular sides of multi-surfaced objects to surfaces in their environment. To address this issue, we presented 40 infants (24 at 10-months and 16 at 13-months) with a 1/2 hard and 1/2 soft cube on 4 different tabletop substrates (Experiment 1) and 48 infants (24 at 10-months and 24 at 13-months) with the same object attached to a handle on 4 different tabletop substrates (Experiment 2). Tabletop substrates were liquid (water), discontinuous (netting), flexible (foam), or rigid (particleboard). Results indicated that infants differentially explored the different sides of the object and the different surfaces with their hands. Infants also demonstrated selectivity when relating the object sides to the surfaces. When the complexity of a handle was added to the multi-surfaced object, infants demonstrated less selectivity. These results suggest that in the second half year, infants already possess important elements of tool use
