2-031 - New advances in the study of object representations in infancy: Formation, structure, and content

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The nature of object representations – how they are formed, their structure, and their content - is one of the most fundamental questions in cognitive science. This international symposium brings together four independent research teams that each have made new and exciting advances in our understanding of object representations in infancy. The first two papers present new insights into the formation and structure of object representations. Paper 1 presents data highlighting the critical role of categorical information in the formation of object representations across infancy, and shows that infants need only brief exposure to new categories in order to use those categories for individuation of objects. Paper 2 presents evidence from 10-month-old infants for two distinct representational formats for objects: a location-bound spatiotemporal pointer and a purely conceptual format that is not bound to location. The second two papers present new insights into the content of object representations. Paper 3 presents evidence that physical reasoning impacts the content of object representations: 5-month-olds encoded a feature in their object representations only when given contextual cues that the feature was relevant to a physical interaction between the object and a container. Paper 4 finds that social context impacts the content of object representations: 6-month-old infants encoded object features differently depending on how they observe an agent interacting with those objects. Together, these papers suggest a more flexible and efficient architecture for object representation in infancy than previously known, and highlight the importance of physical, categorical, and social knowledge in defining object representations.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chair

• Melissa M. Kibbe, Boston University

Individual Presentations

• Infants can use many types of categorical descriptors to individuate objects - Presenting Author: Yi Lin, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Non-Presenting Author: Maayan Stavans, Bar-Ilan University; Non-Presenting Author: Renee Baillargeon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Object representation without object files at 10 months of age - Presenting Author: Gabor Brody, Central European University; Non-Presenting Author: Gergely Csibra, Central European University

• Comparison affects object representation by five-month-olds in physical events - Presenting Author: Su-hua Wang, University of California Santa Cruz; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth Goldman, University of California Santa Cruz

• The content of infants’ object representations is influenced by social context - Presenting Author: Jessica R. Beal, Boston University; Non-Presenting Author: Melissa M. Kibbe, Boston University