INFANTS' APPROACH TO LEARNING ABOUT THE PHYSICAL WORLD

描述：首席调查员提出了一个婴儿的模型 了解物理世界，在这个世界中，婴儿出生时就有 指导他们获得物理知识的专门学习机制 知识。这一机制被认为负责两个过程： (1)不同方式对应的事件类别的形成 哪些对象具有行为，以及(2)初始概念的标识和 稍后，我们将详细阐述影响每个事件类别的变量。什么时候 了解一个事件类别，婴儿首先形成一个初步的， 要么全有要么全无的概念，它只捕捉到类别的本质。使用 根据进一步的经验，这一最初的概念将逐步细化。 婴儿慢慢地识别与类别相关的变量，并 将这些额外的知识融入到他们的推理中，导致 随着时间的推移，预测越来越准确。 在过去的研究中，首席调查员一直在追寻 引导幼儿形成事件类别和事件类型的学习机制 变量的识别。她研究了不同的活动类别，以 追溯和比较他们各自的发展历程。她也有 试图教给婴儿他们还没有识别出的变量 向他们提供中肯的观察结果。她计划继续这些 研究路线，以及承担一条新的研究路线进行审查 婴儿是否能在物体操纵任务中进行同样的演示 在视觉注意任务中发现的物理知识。

DESCRIPTION: The principal investigator proposes a model of infants' learning about the physical world in which infants are born with a specialized learning mechanism that guides their acquisition of physical knowledge. This mechanism is thought to be responsible for two processes: (1) the formation of event categories that correspond to distinct ways in which objects behave, and (2) the identification of an initial concept and later on the elaboration of variables that affect each event category. When learning about an event category, infants first form a preliminary, all-or-none concept that captures only the essence of the category. With further experience, this initial concept is progressively elaborated. Infants slowly identify variables that are relevant to the category and incorporate this additional knowledge into their reasoning, resulting in increasingly accurate predictions over time. In past research the principal investigator has pursued the nature of the learning mechanism that directs infants' formation of event categories and identification of variables. She has examined different event categories to trace and compare their respective developmental courses. She has also attempted to "teach" infants variables they have not yet identified by presenting them with pertinent observations. She plans to continue these lines of research, as well as undertaking a new line of research to examine whether infants can demonstrate in object-manipulation tasks the same physical knowledge that has been uncovered in visual-attention tasks.