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Infant categorization of containment, support and tight‐fit spatial relationships
Author(s) -
Casasola Marianella,
Cohen Leslie B.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-7687.00226
Subject(s) - habituation , categorization , psychology , containment (computer programming) , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , concept learning , spatial relationship , artificial intelligence , computer science , programming language , psychotherapist
Two experiments examined infant categorization of containment, support or tight‐fit spatial relationships. English‐learning infants of 10 months (Experiment 1) and 18 months (Experiment 2) were habituated to four pairs of objects in one of these relationships. They were then tested with one event from habituation, one with novel objects in the familiar relationship, one with familiar objects in a novel relationship and one with novel objects in a novel relationship. Infants at both ages generalized their habituation of the containment relationship to novel objects in this relationship. In the support and tight‐fit conditions, the younger infants responded only to the novel objects in the test while the older infants responded to the novel relationship, but only with familiar objects. The results indicate that infants learn to categorize containment prior to support or tight‐fit relationships and suggest that infants can recognize a relationship between familiar objects prior to novel objects.