Infant's Inductive Generalization of Bodily, Motion, and Sensory Properties to Animals and People

Abstract

It has been proposed that infants can form global categories such as animate and inanimate objects (Mandler, 2004). The inductive generalization paradigm was used to examine inferences made by infants about the bodily, motion, and sensory capabilities of people and animals. In Experiment 1, 14-month-old infants generalized bodily and sensory properties from dogs to cats and vice-versa. In Experiment 2, 16- and 20-month-olds generalized motion and sensory properties modeled with a person more often to mammals than to vehicles. Findings from Experiment 3 indicated that motion properties are generalized broadly to people and mammals but that by 20 months of age, infants may be beginning to attribute sensory properties preferentially to people more than to animals.