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Updated: Oct 11, 2025
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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
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No evidence for language benefits in infant relational learning
Erin M Anderson1, Yin-Juei Chang1, Susan Hespos1
1Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, United States.
Infant Behavior & Development
|November 27, 2021
Summary
Language does not influence relational learning in 12-month-old infants. Unlike older children, infants showed no benefit from relational labels and no hindrance from object labels, suggesting language and relational learning intertwine later.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistic Development
Background:
- Infants demonstrate relational learning in their first year, abstracting concepts like 'same' or 'different'.
- Language significantly impacts relational learning in older children; relational labels aid learning, while object labels can impede it.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether language influences relational learning in 12-month-old infants.
- To determine if relational labels enhance and object labels hinder infant relational learning, mirroring effects in older children.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: 64 infants exposed to relational labels ('same'/'different') before a relational learning task.
- Experiment 2: 48 infants exposed to object labels before a relational learning task.
- Results compared to a baseline study (Ferry et al., 2015) with no prior language exposure.
Main Results:
- Infants exposed to relational labels showed no improvement in abstracting 'same'/'different' relations compared to controls.
- Infants exposed to object labels demonstrated similar relational learning patterns as controls, indicating no hindering effect.
- Findings contrast with older children, where language significantly modulates relational learning.
Conclusions:
- Language does not appear to influence relational learning at 12 months of age.
- This suggests a developmental lag, with the intertwining of language and relational learning occurring later.
- Highlights a key difference in cognitive development between infants and older children.
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