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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Assessment of Social Cognition in Non-human Primates Using a Network of Computerized Automated Learning Device (ALDM) Test Systems
Published on: May 5, 2015
The native language of social cognition
Katherine D Kinzler1, Emmanuel Dupoux, Elizabeth S Spelke
1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. kinzler@fas.harvard.edu
Abstract:
What leads humans to divide the social world into groups, preferring their own group and disfavoring others? Experiments with infants and young children suggest these tendencies are based on predispositions that emerge early in life and depend, in part, on natural language. Young infants prefer to look at a person who previously spoke their native language. Older infants preferentially accept toys from native-language speakers, and preschool children preferentially select native-language speakers as friends. Variations in accent are sufficient to evoke these social preferences, which are observed in infants before they produce or comprehend speech and are exhibited by children even when they comprehend the foreign-accented speech. Early-developing preferences for native-language speakers may serve as a foundation for later-developing preferences and conflicts among social groups.
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