A Bat is Not a Bird: Infants’ Use of Distinct Labels to Guide Inductive Reasoning
Date
2015-07-27
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Abstract
This study examined infants’ use of distinct labels to guide inductive reasoning. Sixty-five 14- to 16-month-olds were presented with target objects that possessed a non-obvious sound property, followed by test objects that varied in shape similarity (inductive inference task). Infants were also administered a working memory and an inhibition task, and parents completed a vocabulary questionnaire. Results revealed that when objects were not labeled, infants generalized the property to the high- similarity objects only. When the target and test objects were labeled with distinct labels, infants 15-months and older inhibited their generalization of the property to the high- and low- similarity objects. Performance on the inductive inference task was related to age, but not to working memory, inhibition or vocabulary. Our findings suggest that infants 15-months and older use distinct labels to carve out distinct categories, even when objects are highly perceptually similar.
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Psychology--Cognitive, Psychology--Developmental
Citation
Switzer, J. (2015). A Bat is Not a Bird: Infants’ Use of Distinct Labels to Guide Inductive Reasoning (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/24630