Infants can rapidly form new categorical representations

Abstract

Young infants learn common categorical distinctions, such as animals versus vehicles. But can they, like adults, rapidly form new categories, such as black-and-white animals? To answer this question, 6-, 10-, and 13-month-old infants were familiarized with four land animals that were black and white in coloring (e.g., a zebra and a black-and-white tiger) and then were tested with novel animals and a truck. The infants responded to an exclusive category that apparently included only black-and-white animals, suggesting that they formed a new categorical representation during familiarization. A comparison group of infants familiarized with a set of land animals that were more variable in coloring (e.g., a pale yellow horse and a yellow-and-brown tiger) formed a very general categorical representation that included many different kinds of animals, regardless of coloring. Therefore, like adults, infants rapidly form new categorical representations in response to the context.

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

“…Procedure, apparatus, and design-The experiments reported here used a version of the standard object-examining procedure (Oakes et al, 1991;Ribar et al, 2004). Infants were seated on their parent's lap at a rectangular table across from an experimenter (see Figure 2).…”

“…During the 30-s trial, infants were allowed to manipulate the items any way that they wanted. If an item was dropped on the floor, the experimenter or the parent picked it up and placed it back on the table without adjusting the trial duration (Mandler & McDonough, 1998;Oakes et al, 1991;Ribar et al, 2004;Younger & Fearing, 1998;Younger & Furrer, 2003). At the end of each trial, the experimenter removed the two items and placed them out of sight, and only then initiated the next trial.…”

“…Coding-First, we coded the duration of infants' looking on each trial from the videotapes of the sessions as described in Ribar et al (2004). Coders observed infants' behavior on each trial and recorded the duration of infants' looking at the toy.…”

Labels Direct Infants’ Attention to Commonalities during Novel Category Learning

“…Category formation is an incremental process heavily dependent on the nature of the familiarization stimuli [7], [9], [11], [28] and even their order [29]. This implies that what happens during learning is of crucial interest.…”

Experience with malleable objects influences shape-based object individuation by infants

“…Further strengthening generalization, the sets of objects used during the demonstration sessions were comprised of objects of various shapes and colors. Variability in category exemplars promotes the formation of broader categories and supports generalization to a wide range of exemplars (Oakes, Coppage, & Dingel, 1997; Ribar, Oakes, & Spalding, 2004). …”