Labels constructively shape object categories in 10-month-old infants

Nadja Althaus,Gert Westermann

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2015.11.013

Nadja Althaus, Gert Westermann

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.11.013

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Abstract

How do infants’ emerging language abilities affect their organization of objects into categories? The question of whether labels can shape the early perceptual categories formed by young infants has received considerable attention, but evidence has remained inconclusive. Here, 10-month-old infants (N=80) were familiarized with a series of morphed stimuli along a continuum that can be seen as either one category or two categories. Infants formed one category when the stimuli were presented in silence or paired with the same label, but they divided the stimulus set into two categories when half of the stimuli were paired with one label and half with another label. Pairing the stimuli with two different nonlinguistic sounds did not lead to the same result. In this case, infants showed evidence for the formation of a single category, indicating that nonlinguistic sounds do not cause infants to divide a category. These results suggest that labels and visual perceptual information interact in category formation, with labels having the potential to constructively shape category structures already in preverbal infants, and that nonlinguistic sounds do not have the same effect.

Highlights

One of the central questions in early language and cognitive development is how the emergence of language affects infants’ preverbal understanding of the world
During the past 20 years, many studies have shown that even very young infants can rapidly form categories on the basis of the static perceptual features of objects (Behl-Chadha, 1996; French, Mareschal, Mermillod, & Quinn, 2004; Mareschal & Quinn, 2001; Oakes, Coppage, & Dingel, 1997; Quinn, 2002, 2004; Quinn & Eimas, 1996) and that during the first year of life these early categories are gradually enhanced with more sophisticated knowledge such as feature correlations, sounds, motion, function, and animacy cues (Baumgartner & Oakes, 2011; Burnham, Vignes, & Ihsen, 1988; Pauen & Träuble, 2009; Perone & Oakes, 2006; Younger & Cohen, 1986)
Two separate questions have been asked about the role of language in infants’ object categorization during the first year of life

Summary

Introduction

One of the central questions in early language and cognitive development is how the emergence of language affects infants’ preverbal understanding of the world. Other research has shown that in older children language can shape object categories by enabling the grouping together of perceptually dissimilar objects (e.g., dogs and whales as mammals) and the separation of similar objects (e.g., bats and birds) into different categories as well as forming the basis for inferences about hidden object properties (Graham, Kilbreath, & Welder, 2004; Welder & Graham, 2001). Several studies have investigated the emerging effect of language on categorization during the first year of life, they have yielded little agreement and it is not yet clear how linguistic information interacts with object representations that have developed preverbally. Two separate questions have been asked about the role of language in infants’ object categorization during the first year of life. The second question is whether, like in older children, labels can override nonverbal perceptual information and change the structure of perceptual categories when visual similarity and category labels are in conflict with each other

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