Eleven-Month-Olds Link Sound Properties With Animal Categories.

Ena Vukatana,Susan A Graham,Suzanne Curtin,Nina Anderson,Michelle S Zepeda

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.559390

Abstract

We examined 11-month-olds’ tendency to generalize properties to category members, an ability that may contribute to the inductive reasoning abilities observed in later developmental periods. Across three experiments, we tested 11-month-olds’ (N = 113) generalization of properties within the cat and dog categories. In each experiment, infants were familiarized to animal–sound pairings (i.e., dog barking; cat meowing) and tested on this association and the generalization of the sound property to new members of the familiarized categories. After familiarization with a single exemplar, 11-month-olds generalized the sound to new category members that were both highly similar and less similar to the familiarized animal (Experiment 1). When familiarized with mismatched animal–sound pairings (Experiment 2; i.e., dog meowing; cat barking), 11-month-olds did not learn or generalize the sound properties, suggesting that infants have pre-existing expectations about the links between the characteristic sound properties and the animal categories. When familiarized with unfamiliar sound–animal pairings (Experiment 3; i.e., dog-unfamiliar sound), 11-month-olds linked the animals with the novel sounds but did not generalize to new category members. Taken together, these findings highlight the conditions under which young infants generalize properties from one exemplar to other category members.

Highlights

Category-based induction is a critical aspect of human reasoning, allowing individuals to generalize beyond what is known to new instances and situations
Much is known about inductive reasoning during the late infancy and preschool years, comparatively little research has focused on the emergence of this ability during the first year of life
We examined a fundamental step in category-based inductive reasoning—the ability to establish category–property links and to generalize properties to new category members

Summary

Introduction

Category-based induction is a critical aspect of human reasoning, allowing individuals to generalize beyond what is known to new instances and situations. Much is known about inductive reasoning during the late infancy and preschool years (see Gelman, 2003; Hayes et al, 2010; Hayes and Heit, 2013 for reviews), comparatively little research has focused on the emergence of this ability during the first year of life. In these experiments, we examined a fundamental step in category-based inductive reasoning—the ability to establish category–property links and to generalize properties to new category members.

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