Browsing by Author "Switzer, Jessica L."
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- ItemOpen Access14- to 16-Month-Olds Attend to Distinct Labels in an Inductive Reasoning Task(Frontiers Media S.A., 2017-01) Switzer, Jessica L.; Graham, Susan A.We examined how naming objects with unique labels influenced infants' reasoning about the non-obvious properties of novel objects. Seventy 14- to 16-month-olds participated in an imitation-based inductive inference task during which they were presented with target objects possessing a non-obvious sound property, followed by test objects that varied in shape similarity in comparison to the target. Infants were assigned to one of two groups: a No Label group in which objects were introduced with a general attentional phrase (i.e., "Look at this one") and a Distinct Label group in which target and test objects were labeled with two distinct count nouns (i.e., fep vs. wug). Infants in the Distinct Label group performed significantly fewer target actions on the high-similarity objects than infants in the No Label group but did not differ in performance of actions on the low-similarity object. Within the Distinct Label group, performance on the inductive inference task was related to age, but not to working memory, inhibitory control, or vocabulary. Within the No Label condition, performance on the inductive inference task was related to a measure of inhibitory control. Our findings suggest that between 14- and 16-months, infants begin to use labels to carve out distinct categories, even when objects are highly perceptually similar.
- ItemEmbargoPreschoolers’ Attention to Social Allegiances When Identifying Social Category Membership(2019-02-04) Switzer, Jessica L.; Graham, Susan A.; Curtin, Suzanne; Madigan, Sheri L.One way that children organize social categories is through an understanding that social categories mark individuals who are socially obligated to one another (Rhodes, 2012a). In this dissertation, I investigated: (1) whether 4- and 5-year-old children infer the social category membership of an individual based on observed relational interactions; (2) whether children use these social categories to guide inductive inferences about related category properties; and (3) whether children require rich linguistic cues to establish meaningful categories from which to make categorical inferences. In Chapter 2, I investigated children’s ability to categorize an individual on the basis of helpful and harmful behaviour directed from a novel social category member to an ambiguous individual whose category membership was not identified. I then asked whether children would generalize a category property to the newly identified member of the category. In Experiment 1, children identified the ambiguous character as belonging to the same category as the individual who helped them, but as belonging to a different social category as the individual who harmed them. Children did not extend the category property to the new member of the category. In Experiment 2, when the category properties were framed as mutually exclusive social conventions, children extended the property to newly identified members of the category. In Experiment 3, I sought to elucidate whether preschoolers require rich linguistic input to form meaningful social categories from which to make categorical inferences. Categories were described without category labels and marked only by spatial segregation and shared properties. Here, children did not identify social category membership on the basis or helpful or harmful behaviour, nor did they generalize category properties. In Chapter 3, I examined whether children infer social category membership on the basis of observed social interactions when categories were labeled with a familiar count-noun. Here, children categorized an ambiguous individual based on harmful, but not helpful, behaviour. The results highlight: (1) children’s ability to infer social category membership on the basis of social interactions; and (2) that children require category information made available via robust linguistic cues to prompt them to attend to social interactions.