Cognitive influences on cross-language speech perception in infancy

Previous research has shown that young infants can discriminate both native and nonnative phonetic contrasts with ease. By 10 to 12 months of age, however, infants—like adults—typically have difficulty discriminating consonant contrasts that are not used to distinguish meaning in their native language. Although the timing of this change in speech perception has been firmly established, little is currently known about the processes or mechanisms involved in this selective and adaptive reorganization in nonnative phonetic discrimination. This study was designed to determine if there is a relation between age-related changes in speech perception performance and other developing cognitive abilities. A total of 40 8- to 10-month-old infants were tested on a nonnative consonant discrimination task and then on two additional tasks (a visual categorization task and an object search task) in an attempt to determine whether changes in nonnative consonant perception coincide with changes in these other areas of cognitive/perceptual functioning. The results indicate that changes in task performance occur in synchrony across all three tasks, and that this synchrony is not explained by simple age effects. These findings suggest that domain-general cognitive/perceptual competencies may influence developmental changes in speech perception by the end of the 1st year of life.     

Development of body emotion perception in infancy: From discrimination to recognition

Research suggests that infants progress from discrimination to recognition of emotions in faces during the first half year of life. It is unknown whether the perception of emotions from bodies develops in a similar manner. In the current study, when presented with happy and angry body videos and voices, 5-month-olds looked longer at the matching video when they were presented upright but not when they were inverted. In contrast, 3.5-month-olds failed to match even with upright videos. Thus, 5-month-olds but not 3.5-month-olds exhibited evidence of recognition of emotions from bodies by demonstrating intermodal matching. In a subsequent experiment, younger infants did discriminate between body emotion videos but failed to exhibit an inversion effect, suggesting that discrimination may be based on low-level stimulus features. These results document a developmental change from discrimination based on non-emotional information at 3.5 months to recognition of body emotions at 5 months. This pattern of development is similar to face emotion knowledge development and suggests that both the face and body emotion perception systems develop rapidly during the first half year of life.     

Mind knowledge in infancy: The emergence of intentional communication

When and how infants and young children start to understand that persons are entities different from ‘non-persons ’ is the central issue addressed in this paper. A critical examination is presented of empirical research inspired by the ‘theory of mind ’ approach and relative to the knowledge about the mind exhibited by pre-school children (2–5 years of age). In considering what kind of psychological knowledge pre-linguistic children may acquire, it is argued that the most significant developmental phenomenon is the grasp of the concept of intentional communication, as distinct from both agency and instrumentality. Intentional communication, so defined, implies the capacity to represent and influence the other person's attentional state about aspects of the world, and at the same time to represent the other person as capable of understanding one's communicative intentions.     

声调范畴感知和声调复杂度对音乐音高感知的跨领域影响

采用音高识别与区分任务, 以汉语母语者、越南语母语者和俄语母语者为研究对象, 考察了两个语言加工层面的因素, 即声调范畴感知模式以及不同语言声调系统的复杂度差异对跨领域音乐音高感知的影响。结果发现: (1)汉语和越南语两组声调语言母语者听辨结果符合范畴感知模式, 而俄语母语者是连续感知。在语言和音乐两种刺激条件下, 声调语言母语者在范畴边界宽度、范畴内区分率、范畴间区分率以及区分峰度等指标上不存在显著差异。(2)汉语和越南语两组声调语言母语者的音乐音高区分任务结果差异不显著。实验结果表明: 在行为层面, 母语声调范畴感知模式可以迁移到音乐音高感知中, 但复杂声调系统并不能促进跨领域的音乐音高精细感知。实验结果从语言对音乐音高加工影响的角度支持了“共享论”。     

Infants' use of material properties to guide their actions with differently weighted objects

Two studies with 9‐, 11‐ and 13‐month‐old infants were conducted to investigate infants' ability to use an object's material properties to guide their object‐directed actions. In study 1, 9‐ and 11‐month‐old infants played in an exploration phase with two objects made of different materials, one very heavy and the other one light and playable. Subsequently, when given the choice between both objects in a preferential reaching task, only the 11‐month‐olds' used the object's material information to remember and choose the lighter object. In study 2, 11‐ and 13‐month‐old infants underwent the same exploration phase. In the test phase, novel objects made of the same materials were offered. The 13‐ but not the 11‐month‐olds chose the objects made from the same material as the lighter object in the exploration phase. Additionally, infants' performances in the reaching task were positively correlated with their exploratory behaviour during the exploration phase. Altogether, the studies show a developmental progression in the use of an object's material information to guide infants' action. The results are discussed in respect to infants' perception of object properties and their implications for the development of physical knowledge. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing race categories in infancy via Bayesian face recognition

The other-race effect emerges during infancy following the perceptual narrowing of face recognition. Other-race faces that were previously discriminable in early infancy cannot be distinguished by older infants. I discuss a Bayesian model of this process that posits that the other-race effect may be a consequence of learning to distinguish between intrapersonal variation (changes to face appearance that preserve identity) and extrapersonal variation (changes that do not preserve identity) in a visual environment in which a subset of race categories dominate. I demonstrate that race categories, which I have previously argued are a critical precursor to the emergence of the other-race effect in infancy, are a natural by-product of this model. Perceptual narrowing for race may thus be a natural consequence of visual experience and the estimation of face variability based on a growing number of exemplars. I describe the basic architecture of the model, its applicability to a range of visual learning scenarios, and identify critical choices one faces in applying the model to a specific perceptual task. Despite the success of the model in accounting for these behavioural results, I conclude by identifying important shortcomings of the model and describe important challenges for future efforts to characterize the development of the other-race effect computationally.     

Labels can override perceptual categories in early infancy

An extensive body of research claims that labels facilitate categorisation, highlight the commonalities between objects and act as invitations to form categories for young infants before their first birthday. While this may indeed be a reasonable claim, we argue that it is not justified by the experiments described in the research. We report on a series of experiments that demonstrate that labels can play a causal role in category formation during infancy. Ten-month-old infants were taught to group computer-displayed, novel cartoon drawings into two categories under tightly controlled experimental conditions. Infants were given the opportunity to learn the two categories under four conditions: Without any labels, with two labels that correlated with category membership, with two labels assigned randomly to objects, and with one label assigned to all objects. Category formation was assessed identically in all conditions using a novelty preference procedure conducted in the absence of any labels. The labelling condition had a decisive impact on the way infants formed categories: When two labels correlated with the visual category information, infants learned two categories, just as if there had been no labels presented. However, uncorrelated labels completely disrupted the formation of any categories. Finally, consistent use of a single label across objects led infants to learn one broad category that included all the objects. These findings demonstrate that even before infants start to produce their first words, the labels they hear can override the manner in which they categorise objects.     

Evidence for task-dependent categorization in infancy

Two experiments compared infants' attention to the categorical distinction between people and animals in object-examining and sequential-touching tasks. In Experiment 1, 10- and 13-month-old infants distinguished between animals and people in an object-examining task. In this task, infants are familiarized with individual exemplars from one category, and then their response to exemplars from another category is measured. In Experiment 2, 13- and 16-month-old infants, but not 10-month-old infants, attended to the same distinction in a sequential-touching task. In this task, infants are presented with several exemplars from two categories simultaneously, and the order in which they touch those objects is assessed. Evaluation of infants' touching behavior in Experiment 2 also revealed developmental changes in how they approached this task. The combined results of these two experiments confirm the general trend reported in the literature and begin to provide insight into developmental changes that contribute to infants' ability to apply their categorization skills in different task contexts.     

不同熟练度双语者的颜色范畴知觉效应：来自行为和ERP的证据

为研究语言对知觉的影响作用, 行为实验采用视觉搜索范式研究蒙汉双语者的颜色范畴知觉效应; 为进一步考察语言影响知觉的脑机制, 脑电实验采用Oddball范式研究蒙汉双语者的颜色范畴知觉效应。行为实验和脑电研究结果都发现, 在区分蒙古语中qinker和huhe色时, 低汉语水平的蒙汉双语者比高汉语水平者产生更强的颜色范畴效应, 蒙汉双语者的汉语水平影响颜色范畴知觉, 双语者所习得的第二语言范畴可以改变双语者母语的范畴, 语言能影响知觉的前注意阶段, 本研究支持了Spair-Whorf假设。     

The homogeneity effect on figure/ground perception in infancy

We examined whether the homogeneity of the two profiles of Rubin's goblet affects figure/ground perception in infants. We modified the two profiles of Rubin's goblet in order to compare figure/ground perception under four test patterns: (1) two profiles painted with horizontal lines (horizontal-line condition), (2) two profiles painted middle gray (uni-color condition), (3) one profile painted light gray and the other dark gray (two-color condition), and (4) a goblet painted with concentric circles (concentric-circles condition). In the horizontal-line condition the homogeneity of the profile was strengthened, and in the two-color condition the homogeneity of the profile was weakened compared to the uni-color condition, which was an original Rubin's goblet. In the concentric-circles condition the homogeneity of the reversed areas of the horizontal-line were strengthened.     

个体攻击性对愤怒表情类别知觉的影响

探讨了个体攻击性对愤怒表情加工中反应偏向和敏感性的影响。使用愤怒、恐惧原型生成表情连续体作为实验材料, 采用类别知觉实验范式考察了高、低攻击个体识别和辨别愤怒-恐惧连续体的类别转折点和斜率。结果发现, 与低攻击个体相比, 高攻击个体识别愤怒-恐惧连续体类别界线处的曲线斜率更大; 高攻击个体具有类别界线向恐惧一端偏移的倾向, 但并没有达到统计显著。这表明, 高攻击个体不存在敌意归因偏向, 而是对愤怒和恐惧表情的转变具有更高的敏感性。     

Attention and executive functioning in infancy: Links to childhood executive function and reading achievement

This study provides the first analyses connecting individual differences in infant attention to reading achievement through the development of executive functioning (EF) in infancy and early childhood. Five‐month‐old infants observed a video, and peak look duration and shift rate were video coded and assessed. At 10 months, as well as 3, 4, and 6 years, children completed age‐appropriate EF tasks (A‐not‐B task, hand game, forward digit span, backwards digit span, and number Stroop). Children also completed a standardized reading assessment and a measure of verbal intelligence (IQ) at age 6. Path analyses on 157 participants showed that infant attention had a direct statistical predictive effect on EF at 10 months, with EF showing a continuous pattern of development from 10 months to 6 years. EF and verbal IQ at 6 years had a direct effect on reading achievement. Furthermore, EF at all time points mediated the relation between 5‐month attention and reading achievement. These findings may inform reading interventions by suggesting earlier intervention time points and specific cognitive processes (i.e. 5‐month attention).     

Differentiation and unification in perception and cognition

It has been suggested that the development of distinctions between perception and cognition depends upon the perspective and the level of analysis chosen. Similarly, the unification of perception and cognition may be achieved from other perspectives and when other levels of analyses are applied. The fruitfulness, and disadvantages, of diverse suggestions for differentation/unification of perception and cognition are discussed briefly.     

The origins of causal perception: evidence from postdictive processing in infancy

The currency of our visual experience consists not only of visual features such as color and motion, but also seemingly higher-level features such as causality--as when we see two billiard balls collide, with one causing the other to move. One of the most important and controversial questions about causal perception involves its origin: do we learn to see causality, or does this ability derive in part from innately specified aspects of our cognitive architecture? Such questions are difficult to answer, but can be indirectly addressed via experiments with infants. Here we explore causal perception in 7-month-old infants, using a different approach from previous work. Recent work in adult visual cognition has demonstrated a postdictive aspect to causal perception: in certain situations, we can perceive a collision between two objects in an ambiguous display even after the moment of potential 'impact' has already passed. This illustrates one way in which our conscious perception of the world is not an instantaneous moment-by-moment construction, but rather is formed by integrating information over short temporal windows. Here we demonstrate analogous postdictive processing in infants' causal perception. This result demonstrates that even infants' visual systems process information in temporally extended chunks. Moreover, this work provides a new way of demonstrating causal perception in infants that differs from previous strategies, and is immune to some previous types of critiques.     

A 2‐year‐old child's memory of hospitalization during early infancy

A child who had had surgery at 5 months of age, and who had been treated at the time for post‐traumatic symptoms (reported in a previous paper by the author), was interviewed 2 years later and almost 3 years later to test for possible verbal recall of his hospitalization. He appeared to have some memories of the experience at 29 months of age, and he was able to superimpose verbal labels onto the preverbal memories. At 40 months of age, however, the memories were no longer verbally accessible. The results are discussed in the context of different theories of encoding, storage, retrieval, and loss of early memories. The findings from this study support other findings indicating that there appears to be some form of long‐term memory in place early in life, at least for highly salient, traumatic events. There may be one memory system for traumatic memories, fully functional at birth, and a later developing, different system for neutral memories. It is further hypothesized that there may be a sensitive period around 2–3 years of age for the recall of early traumatic memories, and that verbal recall is more likely to be present in verbally precocious children during that period. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of chromatic induction in infancy

The perception of colour in an embedded field is affected by the surround colour. This phenomenon is known as chromatic induction. In the present study we investigated whether the colour perception by infants aged 5–7 months could be affected by the surround colour. In Experiments 1 and 2 each stimulus was composed of an array of six squares in tandem. The colour appearance of the array in the familiarization stimulus was established by chromatic induction. In Experiment 1 we used familiarization stimuli that were perceived as two‐colour array with a two‐colour surround. In Experiment 2 we used a familiarization stimulus that was perceived as a uniform‐colour array with a two‐colour surround. In the test phase, the uniform‐colour array and the two‐colour array were presented on a white uniform‐colour surround in both experiments. The results showed that in Experiment 1 the 5‐ and 7‐month‐old infants had novelty preference for the uniform‐colour test array. This suggested that the infants' colour perception could be affected by surround colour. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the 7‐month‐olds showed a novelty preference for the two‐colour test array, but the 5‐month‐olds showed no novelty preference. This suggested that 7‐month‐olds' colour perception could be affected by surround colour, but that of 5‐month‐olds could not. We discuss the contradiction of the results between Experiments 1 and 2. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of bilingual environments on selective attention in infancy

Bilingualism has been observed to influence cognitive processing across the lifespan but whether bilingual environments have an effect on selective attention and attention strategies in infancy remains an unresolved question. In Study 1, infants exposed to monolingual or bilingual environments participated in an eye‐tracking cueing task in which they saw centrally presented stimuli followed by a target appearing on either the left or right side of the screen. Halfway through the trials, the central stimuli reliably predicted targets' locations. In Study 2, the first half of the trials consisted of centrally presented cues that predicted targets' locations; in the second half, the cue–target location relation switched. All infants performed similarly in Study 1, but in Study 2 infants raised in bilingual, but not monolingual, environments were able to successfully update their expectations by making more correct anticipatory eye movements to the target and expressing faster reactive eye latencies toward the target in the post‐switch condition. The experience of attending to a complex environment in which infants simultaneously process and contrast two languages may account for why infants raised in bilingual environments have greater attentional control than those raised in monolingual environments.     

Four meanings of “categorization”: A conceptual analysis of research on person perception

It is widely assumed that people tend to “categorize” other people. However, the term “categorization” has been used with qualitatively different underlying definitions in the person perception literature. We present a conceptual analysis in which we disentangle four existing definitions: (a) categorization as representing, (b) categorization as dichotomizing, (c) categorization as organizing, and (d) categorization as grouping. Subsequently, we show that seemingly antagonistic viewpoints in the literature may be reconciled by disentangling these definitions. Furthermore, we argue that disentangling these definitions is vital for theoretical interpretations of (past and future) empirical findings. Overall, our work aims to contribute to the clarity of person perception theories, provide novel perspectives on existing debates, and serve as a stepping stone for more differentiated models of person perception.