Development of categorization in infancy: advancing forward to the animate/inanimate level.
Three experiments are reported on the development of object categorization skills during the second year of life. Experiment 1 examined whether 14- and 18-month-old infants were capable of performing categorization at the animate/inanimate (A/I) level using a sequential touching task. The 18-month-olds were significantly above chance and the 14-month-olds were also approaching above-chance significance, which is the highest level of inclusiveness ever tested in infancy. In Experiments 2 and 3, 14-month-old infants participated in a sequential touching task in which the part features of animate and inanimate objects were modified, allowing for a test of partonomic (i.e., legs and wheels) vs. taxonomic (i.e., animates and inanimates) categorization. Infants did not favor partonomic categorization, suggesting that A/I categories are not formed solely based on object parts such as legs and wheels.
Concordia University, Montréal, Canada.
Kristin
K
Rostad
Jessica
J
Yott
Diane
D
Poulin-Dubois
D000367:Age Factors; D001288:Attention; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010988:Play and Playthings; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology