INFANT CATEGORIZATION OF LEFT-RIGHT SPATIAL RELATIONS

The ability of 3- to 4-month-old infants to categorize left-right spatial relations was investigated in two experiments employing the paired-preference procedure. In Expt 1, infants were familiarized with different pictures of horse-zebra pairs that varied in size, orientation and location on the stimulus card, but maintained the same left-right relation between the animals. They were then tested with two novel stimuli, each showing a new horse-zebra pair in a new size and location, with the familiar left-right relation between the animals maintained in one pair and reversed in the other. A visual preference for the latter was observed. Expt 2 demonstrated that infants were able to distinguish the familiarization exemplars both from one another and from the test-phase stimuli with the familiar spatial relation between the animals. These data thus supported the view that infants in Expt 1 extracted and categorized the left-right relations between the animals seen during familiarization. The ability of infants to represent left-right spatial relations is discussed in terms of the development of spatial knowledge.