Origins of Object Concepts

当我们环视世界时，我们看到的是彼此独立的物体，每个物体都由独特的大小、形状、表面图案和距离定义。我们感知连贯物体的能力克服了对视觉系统的不完整输入，而视觉系统实际上是跨越空间和时间的碎片。也就是说，我们看到的大多数物体都被其他更近的物体部分遮挡了，当它们移动或我们移动时，它们可能会进入或消失在视线中。常识性概念的“物体持久性”，即物体在远离直接的知觉接触时持续存在的知识，是这种体验的核心。儿童中物体概念的起源长期以来一直是哲学家和研究人员感兴趣的一个来源。最值得注意的是，著名儿童心理学家皮亚杰的开创性研究提供了证据，证明物体概念只有在处理和接触物体的几个月的经验之后才会发展。最近，一些研究人员对皮亚杰的描述提出了质疑，理由是它过于依赖于将触角作为对象概念的索引。对于婴儿来说，达到目标可能很困难，而且可能低估了“真正的”客观知识。相反，婴儿的物体概念被认为植根于与生俱来的知识结构，如“物体连续性”，即理解一个被遮挡的物体在看不见的情况下保持其存在和位置或轨迹。这些概念声称是在使用观察时间方法时被揭示出来的，并且向婴儿呈现的事件违反了对物体永久性的期望(这吸引了比通常预期更长的观看时间)。然而，这样的描述本身也受到了抨击，因为它们未能对发育机制提供可行的解释：即使某些能力是与生俱来的，它肯定是以某种方式培养出来的。此外，这些“违反预期”的方法被批评为导致解释含糊不清。因此，总的来说，关于婴儿基本类型客体知识的起源存在很大分歧。本提案通过测试特定视觉线索在幼儿对物体运动的感知中的作用，以及记录眼球运动和对遮挡显示的反应达到模式来研究这个问题。通过提供多种方法的融合证据，这些结果有望提供有关婴儿感知和认知发展的重要信息，这些方法包括评估对象连续性、多模式(视觉-听觉)对象感知、对象“同一性”(根据外观、位置和运动区分对象的能力)和深度感知。预计这些发现将提供证据和描述，阐明发展的基本机制，并希望这些工作将有助于指导关于婴儿期出现对象概念的关键问题的理论。

When we look around the world, we see objects that are separate from one another, each of which is defined by a unique size, shape, surface pattern, and distance. Our ability to perceive coherent objects overcomes incomplete input to the visual system, which is actually fragmented across space and time. That is, most objects we see are partly occluded by other, nearer objects, and may go in and out of sight as they move or as we move. Commonsense notions of "object permanence," the knowledge that objects persist when away from direct perceptual contact, are central to this experience. Origins of object concepts in children have long been a source of interest among philosophers and researchers. Most notably, the pioneering studies of the eminent child psychologist Piaget provided evidence that object concepts develop only after months of experience handling and reaching for objects. More recently, some researchers have challenged Piaget's account on the grounds that it relies too much on reaching as an index of object concepts. Reaching may be difficult for infants, and may underestimate "true" object knowledge. Infants' object concepts, instead, have been proposed to be rooted in innate knowledge structures, such as "object continuity," the understanding that an object, seen to have become occluded, maintains its existence and location or trajectory when out of sight. Such concepts are claimed to be revealed when looking time methods are employed, and an event is presented to an infant that violates some expectation of object permanence (this attracts longer looking than would be expected normally). Such accounts, however, have themselves come under fire for failing to furnish viable explanations of developmental mechanism: Even if some ability is innate, it must have developed somehow. In addition, these "violation of expectation" methods have been criticized as leading to ambiguity in interpretation. In general, then, there is much disagreement about the origins of fundamental kinds of object knowledge in infants. The present proposal investigates this question by testing the role of specific visual cues in young infants' perceptions of object motions, as well as recording eye movements and reaching patterns in response to occlusion displays. The results are expected to yield important information on infants' perceptual and cognitive development, by providing converging evidence from multiple methods including assessments of object continuity, intermodal (visual-auditory) object perception, object "identity" (the ability to distinguish objects on the basis of appearance, location, and movement), and depth perception. It is anticipated that these findings will provide evidence and accounts that elucidate fundamental mechanisms of development, and it is hoped that such work will help guide theorizing on vital questions of the emergence of object concepts in infancy.