A Comparison of Infants' Categorization in Paired and Successive Presentation Familiarization Tasks

Abstract

Three experiments directly compared infants' categorization in variations of the visual familiarization task. In each experiment, 4‐ or 6‐month‐old infants were familiarized with a collection of dogs or cats and then their response to novel dogs and cats was assessed. In Experiment 1, 4‐month‐old infants responded to the exclusive distinction of dogs or cats when tested in a paired‐comparison task. In Experiments 2 and 3, 6‐month‐old infants, but not 4‐month‐old infants, responded to this same distinction in a successive presentation task, even when the amount of familiarization was equated to that of the paired comparison task. Therefore, familiarization with a particular set of stimuli does not induce infants to respond to a single category but rather they respond to different categories depending on features of the task.

Color–function categories that prime infants to use color information in an object individuation task

“…That is, priming occurred only when the exemplars were sufficiently diverse to support the formation of object and event categories. This interpretation is consistent with a long-standing finding in cognitive psychology that the categories infants, children, and adults build are highly influenced by the nature of the exemplars seen (Ashby & Ell, 2001;Ashby & Maddox, 2005;Markman & Ross, 2003;Oakes & Ribar, 2005;Quinn, Eimas, & Rosenkranz, 1993). What is novel about these findings is that they demonstrate that forming object and event categories that include color information -in which color information is linked to object function -can alter infants' sensitivity to color in a subsequent and unrelated task.…”

“…Even when the time allowed for comparison was limited, the experience of seeing the exemplars together was critical to color priming. This finding provides converging evidence that infants demonstrate enhanced categorization performance -are more likely to form categories and the categories are more abstract -when they are allowed to directly compare exemplars than when they are presented with exemplars one at a time (Namy et al, 1997;Needham, 2001, Needham et al, 2005Oakes & Ribar, 2005;Quinn, 1987;Wilcox & Chapa, 2004). The facilitative effect of direct comparison obtained in Experiment 3 contrasts sharply with the null results obtained in Experiment 4.…”

“…There is evidence that infants 3 to 18 months demonstrate enhanced performance on categorization tasks when they are allowed to directly compare exemplars than when they are presented with exemplars one at a time (Namy, Smith, & Gershkoff-Stowe, 1997;Needham, 2001, Needham, Dueker, & Lockhead, 2005Oakes & Ribar, 2005;Quinn, 1987). Gentner and Namy (1999) argued that the process of comparison facilitates the extraction of deeper and more abstract relations among category members.…”

Infant Rule Learning Facilitated by Speech

“…Adult humans can extract statistics and rules from a variety of domains (Altmann, Diennes, & Goode, 1995; though perhaps not equally from all domains-see Conway & Christiansen, 2005), and infants can extract rules from visual stimuli that are presented co-temporally such that the relevant pattern can be apprehended in a single glance (Tyrell, Stauffer, & Snowman, 1991;Tyrell, Zingardo, & Minard, 1993). But extracting abstract structure from sequences that extend over time may be more challenging; presumably, this requires establishing memory traces of individual elements within and across trials (Oakes & Ribar, 2005). Experiments 1 and 2, as well as unpublished data with visual stimuli (Marcus, Fernandes, Johnson, & Slemmer, 2004), suggest that under these more demanding circumstances, in which a pattern cannot be apprehended in a single glance, it is easier to extract rules from speech than from nonspeech stimuli.…”

Hold your horses: How exposure to different items influences infant categorization

“…Typically, studies have examined infants' attention to adult-defined exclusive categories-those that include a relatively restricted set of items-a compared to adult-defined inclusive categories-those that include a broader range of items. For example, researchers have asked under what conditions do infants respond to the exclusive category of dogs or cats, as opposed to a more inclusive category that includes both dogs and cats (e.g., Oakes & Ribar, 2005;Quinn et al, 1993). Attention to such distinctions is contextdependent.…”