Patterns of 4‐month‐old infant responses to hidden silent and sounding people and objects

Abstract

Responses of 4month-old infants to hidden people and objects were investigated with equated task demands. Twenty-one Cmonth~dd infants were administered a combined task, in which they were shown a sounding stimulus that continued to sound after hiding, an auditory task, in which sound was the only m e of information about the position of the object in space, and a vision task, in which a silent stimulus was shown to the infants prior to hiding. Five infant behaviours were coded: reaching, gazing, body movements, vocalizations and smiles. The infants reached significantly more for hidden objects than for people, to whom they vocalized instead. They further smiled, and moved their bodies more towards their invisible mother than to the other stimuli. Thus infants responded differentially to people and objects whether the stimuli were soundless (so that there was no cue to their presence) or not. This suggested that infants appreciated (a) that an object had been hidden; (b) this object was either animate or inanimate; and (c) different procedures were appropriate for the retrieval of, or for interacting with animate and inanimate objects. Discussion centres on the underlying representational system that allows for such appreciation.Key words: Object search, person search, multimodal.A question frequently addressed by Piaget (1954) concerned the developing understanding of the animate and inanimate distinction. As adults, we distinguish between people and things while knowing that all objects share certain fundamental properties. Both animate and inanimate objects have physical properties (size and shape), but only people act independently, have feelings and intentions. If we want to acquire knowledge about the two classes, we communicate with people and act on objects (Bretherton et al

Naming influences 9-month-olds’ identification of discrete categories along a perceptual continuum

“…Here, we presented continua that were comprised of creature-like stimuli. There are reasons to suspect that naming effects might be strongest with animate kinds: At 9 months, infants show greater interest for animate over inanimate entities (Ferguson, Graf, & Waxman, 2014; Legerstee, 1994; Sanefuji et al, 2011). Infants are especially attentive to animate-like features (Farroni et al, 2005; Gelman & Opfer, 2002; Molina, Van de Walle, Condry, & Spelke, 2004; Pauen, 2002; Poulin-Dubois, Crivello, & Wright, 2015; Rakison & Poulin-Dubois, 2001; Simion, Macchi Cassia, Turati, & Valenza, 2001; Träuble, Pauen, & Poulin-Dubois, 2014) and already form social categories (Kim, Johnson, & Johnson, 2015; Kinzler, Shutts, & Correll, 2010; Kinzler & Spelke, 2011; Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater, & Pascalis, 2002; Shutts, Kinzler, McKee, & Spelke, 2009; Waxman, 2013; Waxman & Grace, 2012).…”

Animacy and propulsion in infancy: Tracking, waving and reaching to self‐propelled and induced moving objects

“…From an early age, responses are differentiated in the way that infants communicate with people and act on objects (Legerstee, 1994). That people are treated in a more communicative fashion by infants than objects corresponds to findings of Spelke and her colloborators that infants can distinguish animate from inanimate objects on the basis of their contact, i.e.…”

Learning to Understand the Forms of Causality Implicit in Scientifically Accepted Explanations

“…Research suggests that children distinguish between animate and inanimate causal agents from a very young age. Legerstee (1994) found that 4-month-olds reacted differently when a person or an inanimate object disappeared behind a door, touching the door in response to the object and vocalizing to the person without touching the door. Sixmonth-olds reveal surprise when an inanimate object such as a chair moves spontaneously and 10-month-olds pull or push on knobs trying to activate an inanimate object more than an animate one (Golinkoff, Harding, Carlson & Sexton, 1984).…”