Abstract
Theories of relations between language and conceptual development benefit from empirical evidence for concepts available in infancy, but such evidence is comparatively scarce. Here, we examine early representations of specific concepts, namely, sets of dynamic events corresponding either to predicates involving two variables with a reversible, asymmetric relation between them (such as the set of all events that correspond to a linguistic phrase like “a dog is pushing a car,”) or to comparatively simpler, one-variable predicates (such as the set of events corresponding to a phrase like “a dog is jumping.”). We develop a non-linguistic, anticipatory eye-tracking task that can be administered to both infants and adults, and we use this task to gather evidence for the formation and use of such one-and two-place-predicate classes (which we refer to as event sortals) in 12–24-mo-old infants, and in adults with and without concurrent verbal prose shadowing. Using visually similar stimuli for both the simpler (one-place) and the more complex (reversible, asymmetric, two-place) concepts, we find that infants only show evidence for forming and generalizing one-place event sortals, and, while adults succeed with both kinds in the absence of verbal shadowing, shadowing hampers their ability to form and use the asymmetric two-place event sortals. In a subsequent experiment with adults, we find that if the shadowing material is grammatically impoverished, adults now succeed in forming and using both one- and two-place event sortals. We discuss implications of these results for theories of concept acquisition, and the role of language in this process.
Highlights
Most theories of conceptual development attempt to explain the ontogeny of concept acquisition as an interaction between some primitive representations of infants’ perceptual inputs, and some mechanisms for their analysis
In this work, drawing on previous literature, we propose that sets of dynamic events involving two participants with an asymmetric relation involving both are relatively complex compared to sets of dynamic events involving only one participant, and that the former might require the support of language to be properly represented as a category
In this experiment, participants had to learn to anticipate the side with a colorful, multimodal animation based on a specific, reversible two-place event sortal, like a dog pushing a car; distinguishing it from its reversed counterpart, a car pushing a dog
Summary
Most theories of conceptual development attempt to explain the ontogeny of concept acquisition as an interaction between some primitive representations of infants’ perceptual inputs, and some mechanisms for their analysis. When such creations become commonplace, we can even substitute them for single words; instead of referring to ‘unmarried men,’ we just say bachelor, and if it were common in our milieu to fish with one’s hands by groping under the stones or banks of a stream, we could refer to each instance of such an event with the word guddling In this sense, language is ideally suited for the development of ad hoc, structured conceptual categories that are of functional relevance, but which might not be innately specified. Research suggests that infants even at 9 months distinguish sortals from broadly distinct ontological categories such as human versus nonhuman, or animate versus inanimate (Surian and Caldi, 2010)
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