Abstract
While distributional learning has been successfully demonstrated for auditory categorization, this study tests whether this mechanism also applies to object categorization: Ten-month-olds (n = 38) were familiarized with either a unimodal or bimodal distribution of a visual continuum. Using automatic eye tracking, we assessed categorization through the alternating/nonalternating paradigm. For infants in the bimodal condition, their average dwell time was larger for alternating trials than for nonalternating trials, while infants in the unimodal condition initially looked equally long at both types of trials. This group difference suggests that the shape of frequency distribution bears on the number of categories that infants construct from a continuum. Later in test, all infants show this alternating preference. We conclude that categorization is a flexible process, continuously adjusting itself to additional input.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 917-926 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | INFANCY |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 6 Sept 2018 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2018 |
Funding
This research was funded by the research priority program Amsterdam Brain & Cognition of the University of Amsterdam and a personal VENI grant (016.154.051) from the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), awarded to CJ. The authors would like to thank parents and infants for their cooperation. Part of this research was earlier presented as a poster at the XIX Biannual International Conference on Infant Studies, July 2014, Berlin, Germany. The authors confirm that there are no conflicts of interests.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research | |
| Universiteit van Amsterdam | 016.154.051 |
| Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek |