The Cat is out of the Bag: The Joint Influence of Previous Experience and Looking Behavior on Infant Categorization

Abstract

We examined the effect of 4‐month‐old infants' previous experience with dogs, cats, or both and their online looking behavior on their learning of the adult‐defined category of cat in a visual familiarization task. Four‐month‐old infants' (N = 123) learning in the laboratory was jointly determined by whether or not they had experience with pets at home and how much they shifted their gaze back and forth between the stimuli during familiarization. Specifically, only infants with pets at home who also exhibited high levels of switching during familiarization remembered the individual cat exemplars or formed a summary representation of those cats. These results are consistent with recent theorizing about the processes of how infants' categorical representations are formed, and provide new understanding into how infants' categorization unfolds over time.

The Development of Selective Attention Orienting is an Agent of Change in Learning and Memory Efficacy

“…The present results are also consistent with previous work showing that individual differences in online attention processing interact with pet experience to influence 4-month-old infants’ learning of cat/dog categories (Kovack-Lesh et al, 2008, 2014, 2012). In these studies infants’ prior experience with pets interacted with their specific looking patterns during familiarization, including the frequency of gaze shifts between two paired images (Kovack-Lesh et al, 2008, 2012) and the proportion of time spent looking at the head region (Kovack-Lesh et al, 2014).…”

“…Consistent with previous research showing that pet experience interacted with online looking patterns during familiarization to influence learning (Kovack-Lesh et al, 2008, 2014, 2012) we predicted that the influence of pet experience on cat/dog category learning may depend on the nature of the attention orienting mechanism (i.e., facilitation vs. IOR) that was engaged during encoding. We presented infants with paired novel animal category exemplars at test from both the cued and noncued categories.…”

“…In these studies infants’ prior experience with pets interacted with their specific looking patterns during familiarization, including the frequency of gaze shifts between two paired images (Kovack-Lesh et al, 2008, 2012) and the proportion of time spent looking at the head region (Kovack-Lesh et al, 2014). The present study extends this work by showing that infants’ prior experience with pets interacts not just with overt patterns of eye movements but also with the underlying, covert orienting mechanisms that support attention processing during encoding.…”

“…Specifically, Kovack-Lesh and colleagues found that 4-month-old infants’ learning about images of cats was influenced by both their previous experience with pets and their looking patterns during familiarization, including the frequency with which they looked back and forth between two paired images (Kovack-Lesh, Horst, & Oakes, 2008; Kovack-Lesh et al, 2014; Kovack-Lesh, Oakes, & McMurray, 2012). Specifically, infants who had pets at home and also showed high levels of shifting gaze during familiarization were the only group who showed successful learning; those who did not have experience with pets or showed low shift rates did not learn about the cat images presented during familiarization (Kovack-Lesh et al, 2008, 2012). Thus, pet experience may serve to enhance the attentional bias favoring the diagnostic head region and potentially induce changes in information-gathering/scanning strategies in support of category learning (Hurley & Oakes, 2015).…”

Connectionist modeling of developmental changes in infancy: Approaches, challenges, and contributions.

“…Second, although some behavioral researchers have moved toward an investigation of both neural and experiential influences on development, as in the study of face processing discussed above, others are still primarily interested in one or the other. For example, researchers interested in infants' perception and categorization of animals have focused on the role of prior experience with animals (e.g., Hurley, Kovack-Lesh, & Oakes, 2010;Kovack-Lesh, Horst, & Oakes, 2008). In contrast, those interested in the development of infants' memory capacity have attributed changes primarily to neural development (e.g., Káldy & Leslie, 2003, 2005.…”