Biological Motion and Human Morphology Prime Infants' Categorization of Basic-Level Categories
Year: 2011
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Biological motion and human morphology prime infants' categorization of basic-level categories Kristyn WrightInfants as young as 9 months of age categorize objects at a global level of inclusiveness (i.e., animals versus vehicles [Mandler & McDonough, 1993;Oakes, Madole, & Cohen, 1991]) but not at the basic level (i.e., dogs versus fish [Mandler & McDonough, 1993]).To test the hypothesis that priming infants with morphological and dynamic cues could influence their ability to categorize, 10-month-olds were exposed to either a point-light display video of a human walking, a video containing a rotating image of a human body, or a control video of randomly moving point-light dots.Following priming, infants completed a basic-level categorization task as well as gaze following and object retrieval tasks.Results revealed that only biological motion and human morphology primed infants' ability to categorize animate, but not inanimate pairs, nor gaze following or object retrieval abilities.These findings suggest that both dynamic and morphological features are used by infants for categorization within the animate domain.iii
Author: Kristyn Wright
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Université Laval
OpenAlex ID: W2162778464