Infants' Acquisition of Category-Property Links: Exploring 7- to 11-month-olds' Abilities
Abstract
Category-based induction is a critical aspect of human reasoning, allowing individuals to generalize beyond what is known to new instances. In this dissertation, I investigated the developmental emergence of this ability by examining infants’ ability to establish category-property links in the first year of life. Specifically, I examined 7-, 9-, and 11-month-olds’ ability to form one-to-one mappings between an animal and a sound, and to generalize the sound properties to new category members in the context of cat and dog categories.
In Chapter 2, I investigated 9- and 11-month-olds’ acquisition and generalization of sound properties. After establishing that infants did not spontaneously match meowing and barking to their respective categories, I manipulated the amount of shared perceptual variability between familiarization and test exemplars (i.e., same vs. different breed of animals), and the number of exemplars presented during familiarization (i.e., single vs. multiple exemplars). Nine- and 11-month-olds formed one-to-one animal-sound mappings under all learning conditions. With respect to property extensions, 11-month-olds generalized the sound to new category members of the same and of a different breed after familiarization with a single exemplar. Nine-month-olds also generalized the sound to new category members of the same breed when familiarized with a single exemplar, but required the presentation of multiple exemplars to extend to members of a different breed.
In Chapter 3, I tested 7-month-olds to assess the developmental emergence of the ability to establish category-property links. I manipulated the number of exemplars presented during familiarization (i.e., single vs. multiple exemplars) and the manner in which the stimuli were presented (i.e., sequentially vs. in pairs). Seven-month-olds learnt the animal-sound mapping when familiarized to a single category exemplar, but not when familiarized with multiple exemplars presented sequentially or in pairs. Seven-month-olds did not extend the sound property under any of the learning conditions.
The results highlight (1) developmental differences in the ability to establish category-property and (2) the conditions that promote property generalizations in the first year of life. The findings provide further evidence that categorization and the ability to make property generalizations are highly dynamic processes, and will be discussed within a process-oriented framework.
Description
Keywords
Psychology--Clinical, Psychology--Developmental
Citation
Vukatana, E. (2017). Infants' Acquisition of Category-Property Links: Exploring 7- to 11-month-olds' Abilities (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26511