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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 26, 2026

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms

Published on: February 8, 2019

Category markers or attributes: why do labels guide infants' inductive inferences?

Jean Keates¹, Susan A Graham

¹University of Calgary, Department of Psychology, Calgary, AB, Canada.

Psychological Science

|January 6, 2009

Summary

Infants learn object properties through labels only when count-noun labels are intentionally presented as category markers. This research clarifies early word learning and inductive reasoning in young children.

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Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Published on: November 2, 2012

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Last Updated: Jun 26, 2026

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms

Published on: February 8, 2019

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Published on: November 2, 2012

Area of Science:

Developmental Psychology
Cognitive Science
Linguistics

Background:

Early word learning is crucial for cognitive development.
Understanding how infants interpret object labels informs theories of language acquisition.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of different types of object labels in 16-month-old infants' inductive reasoning.
To determine the conditions under which infants utilize labels to generalize properties to new objects.

Main Methods:

114 infants aged 16 months were exposed to object introductions using various labeling strategies.
Experimental conditions included general attentional phrases, highlighted objects, recorded labels, count nouns, single words, and adjectives.

Main Results:

Infants generalized target properties only when labels were referential, embedded in naming phrases, and marked as count nouns.
This indicates infants do not perceive labels as mere attributes.

Conclusions:

Infants understand count-noun labels as intentional category markers, not just descriptive attributes.
This finding sheds light on the development of referential understanding and inductive generalization in early childhood.