Thirteen-month-olds rely on shared labels and shape similarity for inductive inferences
Date
2004-03
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Publisher
Wiley : Society for Research In Child Development
Abstract
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.
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Citation
Graham, S. A., Kilbreath, C. S., & Welder, A. N. (2004). Thirteen-month-olds rely on shared labels and shape similarity for inductive inferences. "Child Development", volume 75, number 2, 409-427. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00683.x