Work

Learning to form a spatial category of tight-fit relations: How experience with a label can give a boost.

Year: 2009

Type: article

Abstract: Two experiments explored the ability of 18-month-old infants to form an abstract categorical representation of tight-fit spatial relations in a visual habituation task. In Experiment 1, infants formed an abstract spatial category when hearing a familiar word (tight) during habituation but not when viewing the events in silence or when hearing a novel word. In Experiment 2, infants were given experience viewing and producing tight-fit relations while an experimenter labeled them with a novel word. Following this experience, infants formed the tight-fit spatial category in the visual habituation task, particularly when hearing the novel word again during habituation. Results suggest that even brief experience with a label and tight-fit relations can aid infants in forming an abstract categorical representation of tight-fit relations.

Source: Developmental Psychology

DOI: 10.1037/a0015475

Authors: Marianella Casasola, Jui Bhagwat, Anne S. Burke

Institutions: Cornell University, Brigham and Women's Hospital

Language: English

Topic: Child and Animal Learning Development

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Cornell University, National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: Infant spatial categorization, G258706704, G9000023341