The developmental origins of the animacy concept

生命概念的发展起源

• 批准号: 2003-2013
• 负责人: PoulinDubois, Diane
• 金额: $ 2.91万
• 依托单位: Concordia University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2013-01-01 至 2014-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=520455
• 关键词: developmental; origins; animacy; concept

Many developmental studies have shown that infants differentiate between global categories (e.g. animals, vehicles) within the first year of life (e.g. Behl-Chadha, 1996; Mandler & McDonough, 1993; 1998; Pauen, 2002; Quinn & Johnson, 2000). Being interested in what kind of information infants may use for developing such broad categories, a large body of research explores the role of static information. Among those static attributes considered relevant for identifying animates in terms of their appearance are facial features, leg-like appendages, body configuration and surface information. However, although it has been proposed that infants' concepts also include dynamic information (Rakison & Poulin-Dubois, 2001; Mandler, 2004), little research has been devoted to this issue. In the present research program, my collaborators and I study the development of the most fundamental concepts, those used to categorize the kinds of things that exist in the world: people, animals, furniture, vehicles, etc. We use different methods to test infants' knowledge about the kind of qualities associated with different categories of objects (e.g., type of motion, sensations, etc). For example, in some studies we code infants' visual fixation time on computer-generated events that are anomalous (e.g. bus jumping over an obstacle) and compare them when the infants are shown normal events (e.g., horse jumps over same obstacle). In other studies, we prime infants with computer-generated events (e.g., man walking and test categorization skills and general cognitive abilities. Knowing how much of conceptual knowledge infants possess will help us to know whether infants enter the world prepared by evolution to form certain kinds of concepts and ultimately to design procedures to diagnose infants at risk for autism spectrum disorders.

许多发展研究表明，婴儿在生命的第一年内区分全球类别（例如动物，车辆）（例如Behl-Chadha，1996； Mandler＆McDonough，1993; 1993; 1998; Pauen，2002; Quinn＆Johnson，2000）。对于婴儿可能会用于开发此类广泛类别的哪种信息感兴趣，大量研究探讨了静态信息的作用。在这些静态属性中，被认为与识别动画的外观相关的静态属性包括面部特征，类似腿的附件，身体配置和表面信息。但是，尽管有人提出婴儿的概念也包括动态信息（Rakison＆Poulin-Dubois，2001； Mandler，2004），但很少研究这个问题。在本研究计划中，我和我的合作者研究了最基本的概念的发展，这些概念用于对世界上存在的事物进行分类：人，动物，家具，车辆等。我们使用不同的方法来测试婴儿对与不同类别对象（例如，运动，运动，类型等）相关质量的知识。例如，在一些研究中，我们对婴儿的视觉固定时间编写了计算机生成的事件（例如，公共汽车跳过障碍物）并在显示婴儿正常事件时进行比较（例如，马跳过同一障碍）。在其他研究中，我们是有计算机生成事件的主要婴儿（例如，人步行和测试分类技巧和一般认知能力。知道有多少概念知识婴儿所拥有的概念知识将有助于我们知道婴儿是否通过进化来形成某些类型的概念并最终以设计自动疾病风险的婴儿来形成某些类型的概念，并最终诊断出对自动疾病风险的诊断。