Browsing by Author "Kilbreath, Cari S."
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- ItemOpen AccessIt's a sign of the kind: gestures and words guide infants' inductive inferences(American Psychological Association, 2007-09) Graham, Susan; Kilbreath, Cari S.The role of words and gestures in guiding infants' inductive inferences about nonobvious properties was examined. One hundred seventy-two 14-month-olds and 22-month-olds were presented with novel target objects followed by test objects that varied in similarity to the target. Objects were introduced with a novel word or a novel gesture or with no label. When target and test objects were highly similar in shape, both 14- and 22-month-olds inferred that these objects shared a nonobvious property, regardless of whether the objects were labeled with a word or a gesture or with no label. When objects were labeled with the same word, both 14- and 22-month-olds generalized the nonobvious properties to objects that shared minimal perceptual similarity. Finally, when objects were labeled with the same gesture, 14-month-olds, but not 22-month-olds, generalized the nonobvious properties to objects that shared minimal perceptual similarity. These results indicate that 14-month-olds possess a more generalized symbolic system as they will rely on both words and gestures to guide their inferences. By 22-months of age, infants treat words as a privileged referential form when making inductive inferences.
- ItemOpen AccessThe influence of gestures and object labels on infants' inductive inferences(2003) Kilbreath, Cari S.; Graham, Susan
- ItemOpen AccessThirteen-month-olds rely on shared labels and shape similarity for inductive inferences(Wiley : Society for Research In Child Development, 2004-03) Graham, Susan; Kilbreath, Cari S.; Welder, Andrea N.This study examined the influence of shape similarity and labels on 13-month-olds' inductive inferences. In 3 experiments, 123 infants were presented with novel target objects with or without a nonvisible property, followed by test objects that varied in shape similarity. When objects were not labelled, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high-similarity objects (Experiment 1). When objects were labelled with the same noun, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high- and low-similarity objects (Experiment 2). Finally, when objects were labelled with different nouns, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high-similarity objects (Experiment 3). Thus, infants who are beginning to acquire productive language rely on shared shape similarity and shared names to guide their inductive inferences.