Infants flexibly use different dimensions to categorize objects.

Ann E Ellis; Lisa M Oakes

doi:10.1037/0012-1649.42.6.1000

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PubMed · 17087536

Infants flexibly use different dimensions to categorize objects.

Ann E Ellis·Lisa M Oakes

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Abstract

A sequential-touching task was used to investigate whether 14-month-old infants can rapidly change how they categorize a set of objects, recognizing new groupings of objects they had previously categorized in a different way. When presented with a collection of objects that could be categorized by shape (balls vs. blocks) or material (soft vs. hard), infants who showed stable performance on a superordinate-level categorization task or who had larger receptive vocabularies exhibited flexible categorization; they categorized the objects by material as well as by shape. Infants who rarely responded to the superordinate-level categorization task or who had smaller receptive vocabularies, in contrast, categorized primarily by shape. Thus, flexible categorization is related to development in other cognitive domains.

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Association Learning Child Development Concept Formation Female Generalization, Psychological Humans Infant Language Development Male Pattern Recognition, Visual Photic Stimulation Comparative Study Journal Article Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

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Ann E Ellis, Lisa M Oakes. 2006. Infants flexibly use different dimensions to categorize objects.. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.6.1000

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