Xu Fei, Cote Melissa, Baker Allison
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Psychol Sci. 2005 May;16(5):372-7. doi: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.01543.x.
A new manual search method was used to investigate the impact of naming on object individuation in 12-month-old infants. In Experiment 1, on a two-word trial, an experimenter looked into a box while the infant was watching and provided two labels (e.g., "Look, a fep!" and "Look, a wug!"). On a one-word trial, the experimenter instead repeated the same label (e.g., "Look, a zav!"). After the infant retrieved one object from the box, subsequent search behavior was recorded. Infants searched more persistently (i.e., for a longer duration) after hearing two labels than one, suggesting that hearing two labels led the infants to expect two objects inside the box. In Experiment 2, infants' search behavior did not differ depending on whether they heard one or two emotional expressions, suggesting that the facilitation effect observed in Experiment 1 may be specific to linguistic expressions. Thus, we provide the first evidence that infants as young as 12 months are able to use intentional and referential cues to guide their object representations. These findings also suggest that a rudimentary version of the mutual-exclusivity constraint may be functional by the end of the first year.
一种新的人工搜索方法被用于研究命名对12个月大婴儿物体个体化的影响。在实验1中，在双词试验中，当婴儿观看时，一名实验者看向一个盒子，并给出两个标签（例如，“看，一个fep！”和“看，一个wug！”）。在单词试验中，实验者改为重复相同的标签（例如，“看，一个zav！”）。在婴儿从盒子中取出一个物体后，记录其随后的搜索行为。与听到一个标签相比，婴儿在听到两个标签后搜索更持久（即持续时间更长），这表明听到两个标签使婴儿预期盒子里有两个物体。在实验2中，婴儿的搜索行为不因听到一个还是两个情感表达而有所不同，这表明在实验1中观察到的促进效应可能特定于语言表达。因此，我们提供了首个证据，证明12个月大的婴儿能够使用有意和指称线索来引导他们的物体表征。这些发现还表明，互斥性约束的一个基本版本在第一年末可能起作用。
