Infants' object categories: principles of developmental changes

我的研究项目关注的是婴儿如何成功地将世界组织成有意义的对象类别。关于婴儿最初的范畴是相对宽泛的还是相对狭窄的，以及婴儿形成的范畴的概念性质，目前存在着一场激烈的辩论(Mandler，2004，Quinn，2002)。一个有相当大争议的基本问题是概念特征(看不到的特征)和知觉特征(物体看起来像什么)在婴儿类别形成中的相对重要性。这个问题将是我的研究计划的主要焦点。在一系列实验中，我将研究与物体的经验和物体标签的知识如何影响婴儿形成的类别，更具体地说，是对使用静态和动态特征(例如，物体部分)来分组物品的发展变化的影响。9至24个月大的婴儿将接受广泛的分类任务，包括物体检查、顺序触摸、婴儿控制的习惯化和一般性模仿技术。我们还将利用为婴儿改装的眼球跟踪设备收集物体扫描图案的数据。曝光和物体标签对类别形成的影响将通过操纵对物体的熟悉程度来检验，包括接触显示移动类别样本的视频剪辑，以及通过测量物体标签的理解和产生。综上所述，拟议的研究计划应该会为婴儿在生命的头两年如何建立自己的类别提供新的线索。

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.