The role of language in acquiring object kind concepts in infancy

被引:228
作者
Xu, F [1 ]
机构
[1] Northeastern Univ, Dept Psychol, Boston, MA 02115 USA
关键词
language; object kind concepts; infancy;
D O I
10.1016/S0010-0277(02)00109-9
中图分类号
B84 [心理学];
学科分类号
04 ; 0402 ;
摘要
Four experiments investigated whether 9-month-old infants could use the presence of labels to help them establish a representation of two distinct objects in a complex object individuation task. We found that the presence of two distinct labels facilitated object individuation, but the presence of one label for both objects, two distinct tones, two distinct sounds, or two distinct emotional expressions did not. These findings suggest that language may play an important role in the acquisition of sortal/object kind concepts in infancy: words may serve as "essence placeholders". Implications for the relationship between language and conceptual development are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:223 / 250
页数:28
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