ERIC Number: EJ685555
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004-Mar
Pages: 19
Abstractor: Author
Reference Count: 63
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-3920
Thirteen-Month-Olds Rely on Shared Labels and Shape Similarity for Inductive Inferences
Graham, Susan A.; Kilbreath, Cari S.; Welder, Andrea N.
Child Development, v75 n2 p409-427 Mar 2004
This study examined the influence of shape similarity and labels on 13-month-olds' inductive inferences. In 3 experiments, 123 infants were presented with novel target objects with or without a nonvisible property, followed by test objects that varied in shape similarity. When objects were not labeled, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high-similarity objects (Experiment 1). When objects were labeled with the same noun, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high- and low-similarity objects (Experiment 2). Finally, when objects were labeled with different nouns, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high-similarity objects (Experiment 3). Thus, infants who are beginning to acquire productive language rely on shared shape similarity and shared names to guide their inductive inferences.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: N/A

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