Infants transfer nonobvious properties from pictures to real-world objects

Abstract

The current research examined infants' ability to generalize information about the nonobvious properties of objects depicted in picture books to their real-world referents. Infants aged 13, 15, and 18 months (N=135) were shown a series of pictures depicting an adult acting on a novel object to elicit a nonobvious property of that object. Infants were subsequently tested on their extension of the nonobvious property to the real-world object depicted in the book and their generalization of this property to a different color exemplar of the depicted object. Results indicated that, regardless of age, infants expected the real-world objects to have the nonobvious property, as indicated by their attempts to elicit this property with these objects. These findings indicate that early in their second year of life, infants are beginning to make inductive inferences about nonobvious object properties based on information provided in pictures.

Long-term transfer of learning from books and video during toddlerhood

“…Studies that examine 2D to 3D transfer of learning over long retention intervals will provide us with important practical and educational information about learning across these different media platforms during toddlerhood. At the same time, these findings provide us with new theoretical information, garnered from highly controlled manipulations, about the developmental course of transfer of learning (DeLoache, Simcock & Marzolf, 2004; Durkin & Blades, 2009; Keates, Graham, Ganea, under review) and the development of representational flexibility (Hayne, 2006). Taking Barnett and Ceci’s (2002) taxonomy of transfer framework into consideration, the present study of transfer of learning from 2D sources allows for specific manipulation of modality (from 2D to 3D), social (media model v experimenter), and temporal context (immediate v. delay).…”

The Role of Book Features in Young Children's Transfer of Information from Picture Books to Real-World Contexts

“…This study shows that the pictorial realism of the pictures in the book influenced children's transfer of the rattle assembly, and that this book feature interacts with development. When realistic photos are used, even 13-month-olds can use information presented in a picture book to make inductive inferences about non-obvious properties of real objects and attempt to elicit those properties through particular actions that were depicted in the book (Keates et al, 2014 ; see also Khu et al, 2014 for a study using the same task).…”

Learning from picture books: Infants’ use of naming information

“…Although infants are generally able to learn new information from picture books, their transfer of information from picture books to the real world is influenced by a number of factors, including the iconicity of the pictures ( Simcock and DeLoache, 2006 ; Ganea et al, 2008 , 2009 ) and the similarity between context or stimuli at encoding and test ( Simcock and Dooley, 2007 ). A recent study by Keates et al (in press) provided an important extension to the literature by demonstrating that 13-, 15-, and 18-month-old infants can learn about depicted objects’ hidden properties and subsequently transfer this knowledge to the real world. This ability, however, was relatively tenuous among individual infants - even at 18-months, approximately half of infants did not attempt to elicit the hidden properties.…”

“…Recent evidence indicates that symbolic understanding of pictures emerges in the second year of life (e.g., Preissler and Carey, 2004 ; Simcock and DeLoache, 2006 ; Ganea et al, 2008 , 2009 ; Keates et al, in press ) and that under supportive circumstances, infants can transfer simple information from depicted to real-world objects. For example, infants as young as 15-months of age can extend newly learnt labels from objects depicted in picture books to their real-world referents ( Preissler and Carey, 2004 ; Ganea et al, 2008 , 2009 ).…”