title: Infants transfer nonobvious properties from pictures to real-world objects.
abstract: The current research examined infants' ability to generalize information about the nonobvious properties of objects depicted in picture books to their real-world referents. Infants aged 13, 15, and 18 months (N=135) were shown a series of pictures depicting an adult acting on a novel object to elicit a nonobvious property of that object. Infants were subsequently tested on their extension of the nonobvious property to the real-world object depicted in the book and their generalization of this property to a different color exemplar of the depicted object. Results indicated that, regardless of age, infants expected the real-world objects to have the nonobvious property, as indicated by their attempts to elicit this property with these objects. These findings indicate that early in their second year of life, infants are beginning to make inductive inferences about nonobvious object properties based on information provided in pictures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada.
authors.forename: Jeany
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keates
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada. Electronic address: grahams@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Susan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Graham
authors.affiliation: Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study and Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada.
authors.forename: Patricia A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Ganea
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005793:Generalization, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D014163:Transfer, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Categorization; Extension; Generalization; Imitation; Inductive inference; Symbolic development