Formation of a Categorical Representation for the Spatial Relation Between by 6- to 7-month-old Infants

Quinn, Paul C.; Norris, Christopher M.; Pasko, Rita N.; Schmader, Tanya M.; Mash, Clay

doi:10.1080/135062899394948

Cited by 58 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…), so it must be driven purely by the learners' construal of the corresponding spatial scenes. Interestingly, just as in the present data, children's extension of containment terms is unlikely to be due to a conceptual inability to differentiate going-between from going-into events: There is evidence that even infants possess the concept BETWEEN (Quinn, Doran, & Papafragou, 2011;Quinn, Norris, Pasko, Schmader, & Mash, 1999). A more likely explanation is that children lack the more specific adposition between and co-opt containment expressions to express between-relations since the space between two objects can be treated as a bounded volume (see Johnston & Slobin, 1979;Skordos, Johanson, & Papafragou, unpublished data; for cross-linguistic evidence for the late emergence of between).…”

mentioning

confidence: 62%

What Does Children's Spatial Language Reveal About Spatial Concepts? Evidence From the Use of Containment Expressions

Johanson

Papafragou

2014

Cognitive Science

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Children's overextensions of spatial language are often taken to reveal spatial biases. However, it is unclear whether extension patterns should be attributed to children's overly general spatial concepts or to a narrower notion of conceptual similarity allowing metaphor-like extensions. We describe a previously unnoticed extension of spatial expressions and use a novel method to determine its origins. English-and Greek-speaking 4-and 5-year-olds used containment expressions (e.g., English into, Greek mesa) for events where an object moved into another object but extended such expressions to events where the object moved behind or under another object. The pattern emerged in adult speakers of both languages and also in speakers of 10 additional languages. We conclude that learners do not have an overly general concept of Containment. Nevertheless, children (and adults) perceive similarities across Containment and other types of spatial scenes, even when these similarities are obscured by the conventional forms of the language.

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confidence: 62%

What Does Children's Spatial Language Reveal About Spatial Concepts? Evidence From the Use of Containment Expressions

Johanson

Papafragou

2014

Cognitive Science

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“…For example, in contrast to older infants (6-7 months), the representation of above versus below in younger infants (3-4 months) is specific to the particular objects in the above and below positions (Quinn et al, 1996;Quinn, Polly, Furer, Dobson, & Narter, 2002). Furthermore, whereas 6-to 7-month-olds appear to represent the between relation, 3-to 4-month-olds do not (Quinn, Norris, Pasko, Schmader, & Mash, 1999).…”

Section: Other Spatial-relational Informationmentioning

confidence: 92%

The Representation of Geometric Cues in Infancy

Lourenco¹,

Huttenlocher²

2008

Infancy

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There is evidence that, from an early age, humans are sensitive to spatial information such as simple landmarks and the size of objects. This study concerns the ability to represent a particular kind of spatial information, namely, the geometry of an enclosed layout-an ability present in older children, adults, and nonhuman animals (e.g., Cheng, 1986;Hermer & Spelke, 1996). Using a looking-time procedure, 4.5-to 6.5-montholds were tested on whether they could distinguish among the corners of an isosceles triangle. On each trial, the target corner was marked by a red dot. The stimulus (triangle with dot) appeared from different orientations across trials, ensuring that only cues related to the triangle itself could be used to differentiate the corners. When orientations were highly variable, infants discriminated the unique corner (i.e., the corner with the smaller angle and two equal-length sides) from a nonunique corner; they could not discriminate between the two nonunique corners. With less variable orientations, however, infants did discriminate between the nonunique corners of the isosceles triangle. Implications for how infants represent geometric cues are discussed.

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“…Quinn and colleagues (Quinn, Cummins, Kase, Martin, & Weissman, 1996;Quinn, Norris, Pasko, Schmader, & Mash, 1999), for instance, previously showed that the ability to form categories of static spatial relations develops at different times for different spatial relations. For example, infants can form a category of the location 'over' before they can form a category of the location 'between.…”

Section: Conceptual Foundations For Verb Learning 25mentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual Foundations for Verb Learning: Celebrating the Event

Pulverman¹,

Hirsh‐Pasek²,

Golinkoff³

et al. 2006

Action Meets Word

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This chapter evaluates whether difficulty in analyzing and conceptualizing nonlinguistic events contributes to the documented difficulty in verb learning. It shows that not only can infants discriminate between events based on these components but that they are also capable of forming some categories of events along these lines. Furthermore, there is a relationship between infants' ability to see certain distinctions in non-linguistic events and their level of language development. Infants can look within motion events to find the primitives that form the basis for verb learning and can even form categories based on these primitives.

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Formation of a Categorical Representation for the Spatial Relation Between by 6- to 7-month-old Infants

Cited by 58 publications

References 34 publications

What Does Children's Spatial Language Reveal About Spatial Concepts? Evidence From the Use of Containment Expressions

What Does Children's Spatial Language Reveal About Spatial Concepts? Evidence From the Use of Containment Expressions

The Representation of Geometric Cues in Infancy

Conceptual Foundations for Verb Learning: Celebrating the Event

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