Traeuble, Birgit, Pauen, Sabina and Poulin-Dubois, Diane (2014). Speed and direction changes induce the perception of anirnacy in 7-month-old infants. Front. Psychol., 5. LAUSANNE: FRONTIERS MEDIA SA. ISSN 1664-1078

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Abstract

A large body of research has documented infants' ability to classify animate and inanimate objects based on static or dynamic information. It has been shown that infants less than 1 year of age transfer animacy-specific expectations from dynamic point-light displays to static images. The present study examined whether basic motion cues that typically trigger judgments of perceptual animacy in older children and adults lead 7-month-olds to infer an ambiguous object's identity from dynamic information. Infants were tested with a novel paradigm that required inferring the animacy status of an ambiguous moving shape. An ambiguous shape emerged from behind a screen and its identity could only be inferred from its motion. Its motion pattern varied distinctively between scenes: it either changed speed and direction in an animate way, or it moved along a straight path at a constant speed (i.e., in an inanimate way). At test, the identity of the shape was revealed and it was either consistent or inconsistent with its motion pattern. Infants looked longer on trials with the inconsistent outcome. We conclude that 7-month-olds' representations of animates and inanimates include category-specific associations between static and dynamic attributes. Moreover, these associations seem to hold for simple dynamic cues that are considered minimal conditions for animacy perception.

Item Type: Journal Article
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCIDORCID Put Code
Traeuble, BirgitUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Pauen, SabinaUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Poulin-Dubois, DianeUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
URN: urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-425817
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01141
Journal or Publication Title: Front. Psychol.
Volume: 5
Date: 2014
Publisher: FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
Place of Publication: LAUSANNE
ISSN: 1664-1078
Language: English
Faculty: Unspecified
Divisions: Unspecified
Subjects: no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:
KeywordsLanguage
BIOLOGICAL MOTION; BASIC-LEVEL; CATEGORIZATION; KNOWLEDGE; ANIMACY; GOAL; REPRESENTATIONS; ATTRIBUTION; SENSITIVITYMultiple languages
Psychology, MultidisciplinaryMultiple languages
URI: http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/42581

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