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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 24, 2025

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

An object's categorizability impacts whether infants encode surface features into their object representations.

Melissa M Kibbe¹, Aimee E Stahl²

¹Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies

|July 3, 2023

Summary

Infants selectively encode object features based on category relevance. Toddlers focus on surface details for novel items but prioritize category for familiar ones, adapting their learning strategies.

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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: Jul 24, 2025

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:

Cognitive Development
Infant Perception
Object Representation

Background:

Infants encode surface features of unfamiliar objects and categorical identities of familiar objects.
Research question: Do 16-18-month-olds prioritize category over surface features for familiar objects?

Purpose of the Study:

Investigate how infants encode object information based on category familiarity.
Determine if infants ignore non-diagnostic surface features for familiar objects.

Main Methods:

16-18-month-old infants participated in object retrieval tasks.
Experiments involved hiding objects in a box and observing search behavior after 'switch' trials (within-category and between-category).

Main Results:

Infants focused on surface features only after within-category object switches.
Infants focused on object categories after between-category object switches.
Results were confirmed and linked to object categorizability.

Conclusions:

Infants tailor object encoding strategies based on perceived task relevance.
Developmental flexibility in object representation is demonstrated in toddlers.