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    The perceptual origins of the abstract same/different concept in human infants

    Addyman, Caspar and Mareschal, Denis (2010) The perceptual origins of the abstract same/different concept in human infants. Animal Cognition 13 (6), pp. 817-833. ISSN 1435-9448.

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    Abstract

    Very few experiments have studied the two item same/different relation in young human infants. This contrasts with an extensive animal literature. We tested young infants with two novel tasks designed specifically to provide convergent comparative measures. Each infant completed both tasks allowing an assessment of their understanding of the abstract concept rather than task-specific abilities. In a looking time task with photographic stimuli, we found that 8-month-olds are sensitive to the relation but 4-month-olds are not. The second task used an anticipatory eye movement paradigm with simple geometric stimuli. On each trial, two colored shapes appear and moved upwards behind an occluder. They reappeared on either the upper left or right depending on the relation between them. Infants at both ages learned and generalized the dependency but only for the different relation. These results show that human infants can learn the same/different concept but that, in strong continuity with animal results, their abilities are firmly grounded in perception.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Same/different, human infants, concept learning
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Psychological Sciences
    Research Centres and Institutes: Educational Neuroscience, Centre for, Brain and Cognitive Development, Centre for (CBCD)
    Depositing User: Caspar Addyman
    Date Deposited: 07 Oct 2011 10:12
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 16:56
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/4182

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