Infants' object categories: principles of developmental changes

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My research program is concerned with how infants successfully organize the world into meaningful  object categories. There is currently a hot debate about whether infants' first categories are relatively broad or relatively narrow, as well as about the  conceptual nature of the categories infants form (Mandler, 2004, Quinn, 2002). One basic issue about which there is considerable controversy is the relative importance of conceptual features (features that cannot be seen) and perceptual features (what objects look like) in infants' formation of categories. This issue will be the main  focus of my research program. In a series of experiments, I  will examine how experience with objects and knowledge of object labels impact on the categories infants form, more specifically on developmental changes in the use of static and dynamic features  (e.g., object parts) to group items. Infants aged 9 to 24 months will be administered a wide range of categorization tasks,  including the object  examination, sequential touching, infant-controlled habituation, and generalized imitation techniques. We will also collect data on scanning patterns of objects with eye tracking equipment adapted for infants. The effect of exposure and object labels on category formation will be examined by manipulating familiarity with objects, including  exposure to video clips showing moving category exemplars and by measuring comprehension and  production of object labels. Taken together, the proposed  research program should shed new light on how infants establish their categories during the first two years of  life.