Objects are individuals but stuff doesn't count: perceived rigidity and cohesiveness influence infants' representations of small groups of discrete entities

Huntley-Fenner, Gavin; Carey, Susan; Solimando, Andrea

doi:10.1016/s0010-0277(02)00088-4

Cited by 221 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In experiments using the expectancy violation looking-time method, for example, infants in the first year of life maintain representations of bounded, cohesive objects over occlusion, but fail to maintain representations of perceptually-identical non-cohesive collections (Chiang & Wynn, 2000) or piles of sand over occlusion (Huntley-Fenner, Carey, & Solimando, 2002). A similar pattern has been reported for adult, non-human primates (Santos, Barnes, Mahajan, & Blanco, submitted for publication).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…As mentioned in the introduction, prior to the work presented here, studies of prelinguistic infants and non-linguistic primates suggested that subjects fail to quantify substances in contexts in which they readily quantify objects (Chiang & Wynn, 2000;Huntley-Fenner et al, 2002; Santos et al, submitted for publication). One interpretation of these results is that in the absence of linguistic operators that enable a distinction between mass and count nouns, or measure words like piece and pile, it is not possible to individuate non-solid portions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

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Free-ranging rhesus monkeys spontaneously individuate and enumerate small numbers of non-solid portions

et al. 2008

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Fundamental questions in cognitive science concern the origins and nature of the units that compose visual experience. Here, we investigate the capacity to individuate and store information about non-solid portions, asking in particular whether free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) quantify portions of a non-solid substance presented in discrete pouring actions. When presented with portions of carrot pieces poured from a cup into opaque boxes, rhesus picked the box with the greatest number of portions for comparisons of 1 vs. 2, 2 vs. 3, and 3 vs. 4, but not for comparisons of 4 vs. 5 and 3 vs. 6. Additional experiments indicate that rhesus based their decisions on both the number of portions and the total amount of food. These results show that the capacity to individuate non-solid portions is not unique to humans, and does not depend on structures of natural language. Further, the fact that rhesus' ability to represent non-solid portions is constrained by the same 4-item limit typically ascribed to the system of parallel individuation that operates over solid objects suggests that the visual system recruits common working memory processes for retaining information about solid objects and non-solid portions. We discuss our results with respect to theories of visual processing, as well as to the role that the human language faculty may have played in both the evolution and development of quantification.3

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Free-ranging rhesus monkeys spontaneously individuate and enumerate small numbers of non-solid portions

et al. 2008

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“…Gibson et al, 1979; J. J. Gibson, 1979;Huntley-Fenner et al, 2002;Mash et al, 1998;Spelke et al, 1992;Spelke & Hespos, 2001); accordingly, our connectionist model incorporates these already developed abilities (see Roy & Pentland, 2002, for a related approach). The critical claim of the model is not that lexical learning creates sensitivities to the properties of solidity and nonsolidity, or to the dimensions of shape and material, but rather that lexical learning creates a corpus of correlations between words, properties, and the dimensions that organize categories and that it is the internalization of these regularities that creates children's generalized expectations about categories of even novel solid and nonsolid things.…”

Section: Rationalementioning

confidence: 99%

From the Lexicon to Expectations About Kinds: A Role for Associative Learning.

Colunga¹,

Smith²

2005

Psychological Review

238

282

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In the novel noun generalization task, 2 1/2-year-old children display generalized expectations about how solid and nonsolid things are named, extending names for never-before-encountered solids by shape and for never-before-encountered nonsolids by material. This distinction between solids and nonsolids has been interpreted in terms of an ontological distinction between objects and substances. Nine simulations and behavioral experiments tested the hypothesis that these expectations arise from the correlations characterizing early learned noun categories. In the simulation studies, connectionist networks were trained on noun vocabularies modeled after those of children. These networks formed generalized expectations about solids and nonsolids that match children's performances in the novel noun generalization task in the very different languages of English and Japanese. The simulations also generate new predictions supported by new experiments with children. Implications are discussed in terms of children's development of distinctions between kinds of categories and in terms of the nature of this knowledge.Concepts are hypothetical constructs, theoretical devices hypothesized to explain data, what people do, and what people say. The question of whether a particular theory can explain children's concepts is therefore semantically strange because strictly speaking this question asks about an explanation of an explanation. We begin with this reminder because the goal of the research reported here is to understand the role of associative processes in children's systematic attention to the shape of solid things and to the material of nonsolid things in the task of forming new lexical categories. These attentional biases have been interpreted in terms of children's concepts about the ontological kinds of object and substance (e.g., Dickinson, 1988;Imai & Gentner, 1997;Soja, Carey, & Spelke, 1992;Subrahmanyam, Landau, & Gelman, 1999). These concepts and the notion of a psychological ontology are theoretical constructs offered within the framework that posits propositional representations.In the simulations and experiments reported here, we show how abstract distinctions about different kinds of categories may be made through associative learning and the patterns of correlations between the perceptual properties of things and words. The theoretical explanation we offer and the experiments we report do not explain the hypothetical constructs of object and substance nor do they fully replace these constructs by explaining all of the data that have been subsumed under them. Nonetheless, the results do show how simple associative processes may create abstract distinctions about different kinds and, in so doing, these processes may play a crucial role in children's category and lexical learning.

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“…In the next section, drawing on evidences from experimental psychology, neuropsychology and studies on young infants, we will describe some of the temporal features connoting objecthood. We will argue that, as shown by the experiment of Huntley-Fenner et al (2002), spatio-temporal features have priority over surface properties such as shape and colour. In the last section, we will discuss the implication of these views with respect to a specific neuropsychological syndrome: unilateral spatial neglect.…”

Section: The Spatio-temporal Structure Of Objectsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…What is it that distinguishes them? Using the method of the violation of expectancy, Huntley-Fenner, Carey, and Salimando (2002) have Brain and Cognition 52 (2003) 192-196 www.elsevier.com/locate/b&c shown how 8-month-old infants have permanence for a pile-shaped object, but not for a pile of sand. The study used pile-shaped objects and piles perceptually indistinguishable.…”

Section: The Spatio-temporal Structure Of Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Object temporal connotation

Becchio

Bertone

2003

Brain and Cognition

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Recent studies show that what connotes an object is first of all a certain spatio-temporal structure. In this paper we describe some of the temporal features characterizing the temporal structure of objects: pre-existence, persistence, conservation of identity in spite of perceptive discontinuity, surviving changes in colour, size, and shape. We argue that time is an indispensable attribute for every type of object and briefly discuss the implication of this view with respect to a specific neuropsychological syndrome: unilateral spatial neglect.

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Objects are individuals but stuff doesn't count: perceived rigidity and cohesiveness influence infants' representations of small groups of discrete entities

Cited by 221 publications

References 13 publications

Free-ranging rhesus monkeys spontaneously individuate and enumerate small numbers of non-solid portions

Free-ranging rhesus monkeys spontaneously individuate and enumerate small numbers of non-solid portions

From the Lexicon to Expectations About Kinds: A Role for Associative Learning.

Object temporal connotation

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