3-184 - Integrating Perception, Cognition, and Action: The Case of Scale Errors

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

This symposium will focus on factors related to the production of scale errors, behaviors where young children attempt to perform an action with their own body or an object that cannot be successfully accomplished because their size or that of the object does not afford the action (e.g., trying to put their foot into a toy car). The papers come from researchers from four independent laboratories, including one from Europe. The first paper will serve to introduce the symposium by laying out a model for considering how children integrate information from various sources in the production of scale errors, and present new data from prospective and retrospective parental reports of scale errors that explore the frequency of these behaviors in the home. The other three studies are based on laboratory tasks. The second and third papers will explore how cognitive factors (such as object identity, object function, and language) appear to be more heavily weighted by young children than perceptual information (object size) leading to the production of scale errors. The final paper will examine how changing the action components (e.g., weighting a child's arms) causes a shift in children's attention to perceptual factors leading to a decrease in the frequency of children's scale errors. Taken together the four papers provide novel information about how the integration of perception, cognition, and action influence the frequency and persistence of young children's scale errors in both home and laboratory settings.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chairs

• Karl S. Rosengren, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Martha E Arterberry, Colby College

Individual Presentations

• Scale Errors in Context - Presenting Author: Karl S. Rosengren, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Heather Kirkorian, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Matthew J. Jiang, Dept of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Chantel Raimer, Dept of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• In Scale Errors, Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect - Presenting Author: Krista Casler, Franklin & Marshall College

• Children expect tool functions to be culturally determined: evidence from the phenomenon of scale errors - Presenting Author: Katalin Oláh, MTA-ELTE Momentum Social Minds Research Group; Non-Presenting Author: Fruzsina Elekes, MTA-ELTE Momentum Social Minds Research Group / Central European University; Non-Presenting Author: Réka Pető, Eötvös Loránd University; Non-Presenting Author: Ildikó Király, MTA-ELTE Momentum Social Minds Research Group / Central European University

• The Effect of Weighted Arms on Scale Errors - Presenting Author: Martha E Arterberry, Colby College; Non-Presenting Author: Cole A. Walsh, Colby College; Non-Presenting Author: Susan Hespos, Northwestern University