OBJECT INDIVIDUATION AND EVENT REPRESENTATION IN INFANCY

最近的研究表明，婴儿可以利用至少两个来源， 信息，以使遮挡事件中涉及的对象个体化：（a） 特征（即，物体的形状、大小、颜色或图案）和（B） 物理的（即，了解物体移动的合法方式， 互动）。 然而，婴儿是否表现出这种能力取决于 使用的任务。 当使用事件监视任务时（即，婴儿 必须判断事件的连续部分是否一致）， 婴儿在4.5岁时表现出使用特征信息的能力 个月的年龄，和一些形式的身体信息的3.5个月的 年龄（Aguiar & Baillargeon，1997; Wilcox & Baillargeon，1997）。 在 相反，当使用事件映射任务时（即，婴儿必须 检索一个事件的表示并将其与后续事件进行比较 事件），年龄较大的婴儿往往失败（Wilcox & Baillargeon，在新闻中; Xu & Carey，1996）。 这项研究的目的是研究更多的 密切关注映射问题，并确定婴儿 当他们试图恢复闭塞的表征时， 事件 拟议的研究分为两个部分。 第一 部分研究了婴儿映射闭塞事件的能力， 涉及两个特征上不同的物体。 这些实验解决了 婴儿如何组织和映射需要绑定的事件的问题 特征到个人。 第二部分调查婴儿 映射涉及两个相同对象的遮挡事件的能力。 这些实验解决了两个问题：（a）婴儿利用 不同形式的物理知识，以个性化的对象和（B） 事件模糊性以及它如何导致映射困难。 总之，拟议研究的结果将提供新的见解 婴儿形成闭塞事件表征的方式， 婴儿在推理其他事物时如何使用这些表征 物理事件。 研究结果也将为未来的研究提供方向。 研究将集中在事件表征的调查 在婴儿期。

Recent research indicates that infants can draw on at least two sources of information to individuate objects involved in occlusion events: (a) featural (i.e., the shape, size, color, or pattern of an object) and (b) physical (i.e., knowledge about the lawful ways that objects move and interact). However, whether infants demonstrate this ability depends on the task used. When an event monitoring task is used (i.e., infants must judge whether successive portions of an event are consistent), infants demonstrate the ability to use featural information by 4.5 months of age, and some forms of physical information by 3.5 months of age (Aguiar & Baillargeon, 1997; Wilcox & Baillargeon, 1997). In contrast, when an event mapping task is used (i.e., infants must retrieve a representation of one event and compare it to a subsequent event), older infants often fail (Wilcox & Baillargeon, in press; Xu & Carey, 1996). The goal of the proposed research is to examine more closely the mapping problem and to identify the processes that infants engage in when they attempt to retrieve representations of occlusion events. The proposed research has been organized into two sections. The first section investigates infants ability to map occlusion events that involve two featurally distinct objects. These experiments address the question of how infants organize and map events that require binding features to individuals. The second section investigates infants ability to map occlusion events that involve two identical objects. These experiments address two issues: (a) infants ability to draw on different forms of physical knowledge to individuate objects and (b) event ambiguity and how it contributes to mapping difficulties. Together, the results of the proposed research will provide new insight into the way that infants form representations of occlusion events and how infants use these representations when reasoning about other physical events. The results will also provide direction for future research that will focus on the investigation of event representations in infancy.