Development of categorization in infancy: Advancing forward to the animate/inanimate level

• Published in: Infant behavior & development 2012-06, Vol.35 (3), p.584-595
• Main Authors: Rostad, Kristin, Yott, Jessica, Poulin-Dubois, Diane
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animate/inanimate distinction; Biological and medical sciences; Categorization; Child development; Developmental psychology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Infants; Leg; Newborn. Infant; Object parts; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Sequential touching
• ISSN: 0163-6383; 1879-0453
• DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2012.05.005

► Infant as young as 18 months can categorize at the animate/inanimate (A/I) level. ► Categories are not formed solely based on object parts such as legs and wheels. ► Present findings support the top-down hypothesis of conceptual development. ► Taxonomic categorization favored over partonomic categorization in infancy. Three experiments are reported on the development of object categorization skills during the second year of life. Experiment 1 examined whether 14- and 18-month-old infants were capable of performing categorization at the animate/inanimate (A/I) level using a sequential touching task. The 18-month-olds were significantly above chance and the 14-month-olds were also approaching above-chance significance, which is the highest level of inclusiveness ever tested in infancy. In Experiments 2 and 3, 14-month-old infants participated in a sequential touching task in which the part features of animate and inanimate objects were modified, allowing for a test of partonomic (i.e., legs and wheels) vs. taxonomic (i.e., animates and inanimates) categorization. Infants did not favor partonomic categorization, suggesting that A/I categories are not formed solely based on object parts such as legs and wheels.