The role of functional information for infant categorization

Träuble, Birgit; Pauen, Sabina

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2006.10.003

Cited by 113 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…The current results add to a growing body of research that demonstrates how children's categorical decisions shift based on the context of presentation (e.g., Blair & Somerville, 2009;Booth & Waxman, 2002;Booth, Waxman, & Huang, 2005;Diesendruck & Bloom, 2003;Graham, Welder, Merrifield, & Berman, in press;Imai et al, 1994;Kotovsky & Gentner, 1996;Namy & Gentner, 2002;Trauble & Pauen, 2007;Waxman & Namy, 1997). For example, Hammer and Diesendruck (2005) specifically demonstrated that when contextual factors led objects' functions to be more distinctive, children extended a standard's name to a test object with the same function.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 49%

The role of comparison in preschoolers’ novel object categorization

Graham

Namy

Gentner

et al. 2010

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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We examined the role of the comparison process and shared names on preschoolers' categorization of novel objects. In our studies, 4-year-olds were presented with novel object sets consisting of either one or two standards and two test objects: a shape match and a texture match. When children were presented with one standard, they extended the category based on shape regardless of whether the objects were named. When children were presented with two standards that shared the same texture and the objects were named with the same noun, they extended the category based on texture. The opportunity to compare two standards, in the absence of shared names, led to an attenuation of the effect of shape. These findings demonstrate that comparison plays a critical role in the categorization of novel objects and that shared names enhance this process.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 49%

The role of comparison in preschoolers’ novel object categorization

Graham

Namy

Gentner

et al. 2010

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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“…Studies examining the acquisition of novel functional object knowledge have suggested that the sensorimotor system plays an important role in the learning process (e.g., Lockman 2000;Paulus et al 2009;Sutter et al 2011) and that the object representations are stored in sensory-motor areas (Kiefer et al 2007;Martin 2007). Moreover, in line with studies stressing the role of object function in object learning (Träuble and Pauen 2007), it has been shown that the presence of salient action effects or an object's function affects the object representation acquired during the training process (van Elk et al 2011). Evidence for the role of first-hand action experiences comes from a study of van Elk et al (2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Acquiring functional object knowledge through motor imagery?

2012

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A widely investigated question in the research on the acquisition of novel functional object representations is the role of the action system. Whereas most studies so far have investigated the role of active action training on the acquisition of object representation, we investigated whether people are able to acquire object representations by just imagining the use of novel objects, given that previous findings suggested that executed and imagined actions share a common representational format. To this end, participants trained the use of novel objects in a motor imagery condition. Training comprised the particular grip applied to the objects and the objects' typical end location. Subsequently, participants' object representations were assessed by means of an object detection task. The results show that participants responded slower when the novel objects were presented at functionally incorrect end locations, indicating that the participants had acquired functional knowledge about object use. Yet, there was no effect of correct versus incorrect grip. Altogether, the findings suggest that motor imagery can facilitate the acquisition of novel object representations, but point also to differences between first-hand action training and training by imagery.

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“…Infants group objects that share similar broad-level perceptual features such as shapes at 3 to 4 months (Quinn, Slater, Brown, & Hayes, 2001). This process quickly becomes more abstract and complex as infants begin to categorize similar relative locations such as "in" or "on" at about 6 months (Casasola, Cohen, & Chiarello, 2003) and objects that share similar functions by 11 or 12 months old (Träuble & Pauen, 2007).…”

Section: Categorization and Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Babies open our minds to their minds: How “listening” to infant signs complements and extends our knowledge of infants and their development

Vallotton

2011

Infant Mental Health Journal

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Preverbal children are capable of explicitly communicating their own desires, emotions, and thoughts through infant signs (i.e., symbolic gestures) that they have invented or learned from caregivers. In this article, I describe seven lines of child development research and show how attending to infants' use of signs can complement and extend this knowledge of development for both scientists and caregivers. The areas of developmental research include object permanence, categorization, shared meaning, mental state understanding and absent reference, emotion knowledge, identity, and self-regulation. I present qualitative data on infants' signing gathered through videos of caregiver-child interaction, student caregivers' systematic participant observations, my own observations in an infant classroom, and volunteered sign stories from parents who use signs with their infants. I also present quotes from interviews with parents and caregivers of signing children to show how infants' signing affects adults' perceptions of and feelings toward children. With infant signs, infants reveal their thoughts, feelings, interests, and personalities in their own contexts through everyday interactions. By "listening" to infant signs, parents, practitioners, and scientists gain insight into individual infants and respect for the often underestimated capacities of preverbal children.

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The role of functional information for infant categorization

Cited by 113 publications

References 39 publications

The role of comparison in preschoolers’ novel object categorization

The role of comparison in preschoolers’ novel object categorization

Acquiring functional object knowledge through motor imagery?

Babies open our minds to their minds: How “listening” to infant signs complements and extends our knowledge of infants and their development

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