Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Infant Behav Dev. 2012 Jun;35(3):348-59. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2012.04.003. Epub 2012 Jun 19.
There is relatively little work that has focused on how infants use a single feature to discriminate objects or flexibly group objects together. Existing research suggests that the ease with which infants learn form and color discriminations is not equal. However, which of these dimensions is easier when discriminating between objects is still unclear. The studies in this paper tested how infants used these two dimensions under varying levels of diversity in a discrimination task. Combining traditional analyses with latent-states Markov-modeling, infant learning in these studies was characterized by a bend of overt behavior and attentional processes. Infants were able to learn both a color and form-based discrimination, but only generalized the form distinction to new stimuli. When presented with diversity on the irrelevant dimension, infants in the form condition learned quickly. However, infants in the color-condition did not show signs that they learned the distinction. The results show that infants could use both dimensions to distinguish between objects, but that form-based distinctions were easier and more likely to be generalized to new objects.
目前，很少有研究关注婴儿如何使用单一特征来区分物体或灵活地将物体组合在一起。现有研究表明，婴儿学习形状和颜色辨别能力的难易程度并不相同。然而，在区分物体时，哪个维度更容易还不清楚。本文中的研究通过在辨别任务中改变多样性的水平，测试了婴儿如何使用这两个维度。通过将传统分析与潜在状态马尔可夫模型相结合，这些研究中的婴儿学习过程的特点是表现出明显的行为和注意过程的变化。婴儿能够学习基于颜色和形状的辨别，但仅将形状区分推广到新的刺激。当呈现不相关维度的多样性时，处于形状条件下的婴儿学习得很快。然而，处于颜色条件下的婴儿并没有表现出他们学习区分的迹象。结果表明，婴儿可以使用这两个维度来区分物体，但基于形状的区分更容易，也更有可能推广到新物体。
