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Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning
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The emerging causal understanding of institutional objects.

Alexander Noyes1, Frank C Keil1, Yarrow Dunham1

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Children initially struggle to distinguish institutional objects, like money, from everyday artifacts. By elementary school, they begin to grasp that institutional object functions depend on shared social intentions, not just physical properties.

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Social Cognition
  • Philosophy of Social Science

Background:

  • Institutional objects (e.g., money, licenses) derive function from social roles, unlike standard artifacts (e.g., hammers).
  • Understanding these objects is crucial for psychological theories of human-made items and children's social reality comprehension.
  • Prior research highlights the distinction between artifact types and their underlying causal mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether children differentiate between institutional objects and standard artifacts.
  • To determine if children understand the role of mutual intentions in institutional object functionality.
  • To explore the developmental trajectory of this understanding from early childhood through elementary school.

Main Methods:

  • A study involving 180 children aged 4 to 9 years.
  • Participants were assessed on their understanding of the functional affordances of both institutional and standard objects.
  • The research specifically probed children's grasp of collective intentions underlying object functions.

Main Results:

  • Young children (4-6 years) tend to assimilate institutional objects into their intuitive theories of standard artifacts.
  • Children begin to differentiate between institutional objects and standard artifacts during the elementary school years (7-9 years).
  • The understanding that mutual intentions underpin institutional object functions emerges later in development.

Conclusions:

  • Children's conceptualization of objects evolves, moving from a focus on physical properties to understanding social constructs.
  • The development of differentiating institutional from standard artifacts reflects a broader maturation in social cognition.
  • This research provides insights into how children build an understanding of social reality and shared intentionality.