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Published on: April 19, 2017
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Prelinguistic Relational Concepts: Investigating Analogical Processing in Infants.
Alissa L Ferry1, Susan J Hespos1, Dedre Gentner1
1Northwestern University.
Child Development
|May 22, 2015
Summary
Human infants as young as 7 months possess analogical reasoning skills. This study demonstrates their ability to learn and generalize relational concepts, crucial for cognitive development.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Analogical processing is a complex cognitive skill.
- Previous research suggested infants could spontaneously detect simple relations.
- The capacity for analogical reasoning in early infancy remains under investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the presence of analogical processing ability in human infants.
- To determine if infants can abstract and generalize the same-different relation.
- To explore factors influencing infant analogical learning.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1 attempted to replicate previous findings on spontaneous relation detection.
- Experiment 2 used multiple exemplars to test abstracting the same-different relation via analogical processing.
- Infant participants were 7- and 9-month-olds; learning was assessed by generalization to novel pairs.
Main Results:
- Replication in Experiment 1 failed to show spontaneous detection of the same-different relation.
- In Experiment 2, infants successfully abstracted and generalized the same-different relation with four exemplars.
- Learning was facilitated by multiple exemplars and disrupted by object salience, characteristic of analogical learning.
Conclusions:
- Human infants demonstrate analogical ability by 7 months of age.
- Abstracting relational concepts is possible for infants through analogical processing.
- Early analogical skills are foundational for cognitive development and learning.
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