The Development of Infants' Spatial Categories

ABSTRACT— Early theories of how infants develop spatial concepts focused on the perceptual and cognitive abilities that contribute to this ability. More recent research, however, has centered on whether experience with spatial language might also play a role. The present article reviews how infants learn to form spatial categories, outlining the perceptual and cognitive abilities that drive this learning, and examines the role played by spatial language. I argue that infants' spatial concepts initially are the result of nonlinguistic perceptual and cognitive abilities, but that, as infants build a spatial lexicon, spatial language becomes an important tool in the spatial categories infants learn to form.     

Canada’s private sponsorship of refugees program: A practitioners perspective of its past and future

Over its history, the private sponsorship program has been an important vehicle for Canada and Canadians in their response to refugees. It has been a flexible tool able to respond to both small and large-scale resettlement needs. The result is that thousands of refugees have found a durable solution in Canada. This article chronicles the evolution of this program. It argues that while the program is driven by the interest of Canadians to assist particular refugees, it is still in keeping with the international objectives of increasing and diversifying resettlement. It identifies a number of the challenges that program faces. Ultimately, it urges that the program be given greater attention and study so as to ensure that it is able to continue to provide additional refugees with a durable solution.     

Pedagogical cues encourage toddlers' transmission of recently demonstrated functions to unfamiliar adults

Young children use pedagogical cues as a signal that others' actions are social or cultural conventions. Here we show that children selectively transmit (enact in a new social situation) causal functions demonstrated pedagogically, even when they have learned and can produce alternative functions as well. Two‐year‐olds saw two novel toys, each with two functions. One experimenter demonstrated one function using pedagogical cues (eye contact and child‐directed speech) and a second experimenter demonstrated the alternative function using intentional actions towards the object, but without pedagogical cues. Children imitated both functions at equal rates initially, indicating equal causal learning from both types of demonstration. However, they were significantly more likely to enact the pedagogical function for a new adult not present during the initial demonstrations. These results indicate that pedagogical cues influence children's transmission of information, perhaps playing a role in the dissemination of cultural conventions from a young age.     

Can language do the driving? The effect of linguistic input on infants' categorization of support spatial relations

Two experiments explored the effect of linguistic input on 18-month-olds' ability to form an abstract categorical representation of support. Infants were habituated to 4 support events (i.e., one object placed on another) and were tested with a novel support and a novel containment event. Infants formed an abstract category of support (i.e., looked significantly longer at the novel than familiar relation) when hearing the word "on" during habituation but not when viewing the events in silence (Experiment 1) or when hearing general phrases or a novel word (Experiment 2). Results indicate that a familiar word can facilitate infants' formation of an abstract spatial category, leading them to form a category that they do not form in the absence of the word.     

Infant categorization of containment,support and tight‐fit spatial relationships

Two experiments examined infant categorization of containment, support or tight‐fit spatial relationships. English‐learning infants of 10 months (Experiment 1) and 18 months (Experiment 2) were habituated to four pairs of objects in one of these relationships. They were then tested with one event from habituation, one with novel objects in the familiar relationship, one with familiar objects in a novel relationship and one with novel objects in a novel relationship. Infants at both ages generalized their habituation of the containment relationship to novel objects in this relationship. In the support and tight‐fit conditions, the younger infants responded only to the novel objects in the test while the older infants responded to the novel relationship, but only with familiar objects. The results indicate that infants learn to categorize containment prior to support or tight‐fit relationships and suggest that infants can recognize a relationship between familiar objects prior to novel objects.     

Discriminating signs: perceptual precursors to acquiring a visual-gestural language

We tested hearing 6- and 10-month-olds' ability to discriminate among three American Sign Language (ASL) parameters (location, handshape, and movement) as well as a grammatical marker (facial expression). ASL-na?ve infants were habituated to a signer articulating a two-handed symmetrical sign in neutral space. During test, infants viewed novel two-handed signs that varied in only one parameter or in facial expression. Infants detected changes in the signer's facial expression and in the location of the sign but provided no evidence of detecting the changes in handshape or movement. These findings are consistent with children's production errors in ASL and reveal that infants can distinguish among some parameters of ASL more easily than others.     

Infants' association of linguistic labels with causal actions

Six experiments examined infants' ability to associate nonsense words with 2 causal actions: pushing and pulling. Although Experiment 1 found that 14-month-olds failed to form word-action associations, 18-month-olds in Experiment 2 provided reliable evidence of doing so. Additional experiments explored why 14-month-olds may not have formed such an association. Experiment 3 examined 14-month-olds' ability to discriminate a change in either the action or the label when the other element was held constant. Infants discriminated the change in label but not the change in action. When the language labels were replaced with music (Experiments 4-6), 14-month-old infants responded in terms of and discriminated between pushing and pulling. These results, in comparison with those from Experiments 1 and 3, suggest that for 14 month-olds, attempting to associate labels with actions may interfere with their discrimination of similar actions.