Biomedical subjects

S Pauen

Publications and source records attributed to S Pauen.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2000

Early differentiation within the animate domain: are humans something special?

This report investigates whether preverbal infants distinguish between humans and mammals within the animate domain. In Experiment 1, 3 groups, aged 7, 9, and 11 months (N = 58), participated in an object-examination task. Infants were presented with 10 different three-dimensional toy models from one category (humans or mammals), followed by an exemplar from the other category. All groups habituated to the familiarization stimuli and dishabituated to the out-of-category item. In Experiment 2, 2 groups of infants, aged 5 and 7 months (N = 40), participated in a familiarization-novelty preference task. Four pairs of color photos of objects from the same category were presented twice, and then infants received a test pair that included one new object from the already-familiar category and one out-of-category item. Infants habituated only to humans, and 7-month-olds, but not 5-month-olds, dishabituated to the out-of-category exemplar. Implications for the development of categorical thinking during the first year of life are discussed.

Cognition↗

PubMed1997

Children's analogical reasoning about natural phenomena.

This report investigates children's analogical reasoning in a physics task, using an analogy generated by the children rather than by the experimenter. A total of 127 elementary school children took part in three related studies. Children learned to predict the behavior of a balance scale. Later, they were asked to solve a force interaction problem. Two versions of the balance scale training were devised: version A suggested an incorrect solution to the target problem (negative analogy), and version B suggested a correct solution to the target problem (positive analogy). In Study 1, 9- to 10-year-olds showed spontaneous transfer in both training conditions. In Study 2, 7-year-olds did not show any transfer in the positive analogy condition. Study 3 revealed that the lack of transfer in younger children was not due to a failure either to notice the analogy or to perform the mapping. Instead, 7-year-olds transferred only selected aspects of the correct solution.

Attention↗

PubMed1996

Children's reasoning about the interaction of forces.

In order to acquire an advanced understanding of movements caused by more than one physical force, children must learn to combine force vectors. Former studies suggest that children consider information on only one aspect (direction or amount) of both vectors. Two experiments tested this hypothesis. A total of 160 elementary school children and 31 adults judged the effect of two forces pulling at one object simultaneously. Participants had to predict the direction of the resulting force under different experimental conditions. In line with previous findings, most children took into account either the direction or the amount of both forces. Their preferred solution varied with the nature of the vector problem and the context of the task. Performance generally improved with age.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

[Categorization in infancy: differentiation of global object classes].

Two studies tested whether preverbal children distinguish global categories (animal and furniture) on a conceptual basis. A total of 59 eleven-month-olds solved an object examination task. During habituation, infants freely explored different natural-looking toy models from the same category. In Study 1, the same series of four different examplars was presented twice. In Study 2, ten different exemplares were presented. In both cases, a significant habituation effect could be observed. When a perceptually new object of the same category was presented on the first test trial after habituation, a significant increase in examination time from the last habituation trial to the first test trial could be observed in Study 1. When a new object of the contrasting category was presented on the second test trial, examination times increased significantly from the first to the second test trial in both studies. These results support earlier findings suggesting that preverbal infants are able to distinguish global categories on a conceptual basis.

Attention↗