Learning to form a spatial category of tight-fit relations: how experience with a label can give a boost

Dev Psychol. 2009 May;45(3):711-23. doi: 10.1037/a0015475.

Abstract

Two experiments explored the ability of 18-month-old infants to form an abstract categorical representation of tight-fit spatial relations in a visual habituation task. In Experiment 1, infants formed an abstract spatial category when hearing a familiar word (tight) during habituation but not when viewing the events in silence or when hearing a novel word. In Experiment 2, infants were given experience viewing and producing tight-fit relations while an experimenter labeled them with a novel word. Following this experience, infants formed the tight-fit spatial category in the visual habituation task, particularly when hearing the novel word again during habituation. Results suggest that even brief experience with a label and tight-fit relations can aid infants in forming an abstract categorical representation of tight-fit relations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Association Learning
  • Attention
  • Color Perception
  • Comprehension*
  • Female
  • Generalization, Psychological
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Language Development*
  • Male
  • Motion Perception*
  • Orientation*
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual*
  • Psychology, Child*
  • Psychomotor Performance
  • Semantics*
  • Space Perception*
  • Speech Perception*
  • Vocabulary