Abstract
To investigate whether bodies are useful cues in infants' category formations, 7-month-old infants were familiarized to images of humans or non-human animals followed by test pairs comprising a familiar category image and a hybrid image with a novel category body. Infants familiarized to humans did not demonstrate a novelty preference for hybrid stimuli with non-human animal bodies. Infants familiarized with non-human animals demonstrated a novelty preference for hybrid stimuli with human bodies, suggesting that there is an asymmetry in infants' category formations of bodies. Compared with infants familiarized to non-human animals, the infants familiarized to humans had a higher proportional fixation count to bodies during familiarization, but the lack of preference for novel category bodies at test suggests that 7-month-old infants' representations of the features of human bodies are likely still developing and they are more likely to form a summary-based categorical representation of non-human animals. Highlights: This study tackles the question as to whether bodies are relevant cues for infants' category formations of humans and non-human animals. Infants were familiarized with a series of humans or non-human animals and were subsequently presented with test pairs, one of which contained a novel category body. Only 7-month-olds presented with animal images preferred novel category human bodies. Infants in both conditions had a higher proportional fixation count to bodies within the figures, yet infants familiarized with humans failed to demonstrate a preference for novel category bodies. Differing levels of familiarity with the categories could explain the asymmetry in infants' categorization of bodies of humans and animals. Infants' body representations are likely still developing at 7 months of age and after familiarization with human images, non-human animal bodies do not appear sufficiently different for this age group.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e2112 |
Journal | Infant and Child Development |
Volume | 27 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Nov 2018 |