Quinn, P. C., Slater, A. M., Brown., E.,

1
Quinn, P. C., Slater, A. M., Brown., E.,
Hayes, R. A. (2001). Developmental change in form
categorization in early infancy. British Journal
of Developmental Psychology, 19, 207218.

• Findings
• Newborns displayed the ability to discriminate
  between exemplars across geometric categories
  (e.g. circle vs. square, Expt 1), within same
  form classes (e.g. one circle vs. another, Expt
  2).
• In Expt 3, older infants provided evidence of
  having formed individuated categorical
  representations for circles, crosses, squares and
  triangles, whereas newborn infants did not.
• However, newborn performance was consistent with
  the formation of broader categorical
  representations for open versus closed classes of
  form (i.e. crosses vs. circles, squares and
  triangles).

• Theory
• Infants have form categorization capacity
• 3- to 4-month-old infants extract better defined
  category representations than newborns
• Methods
• 8 -18 newborn and older (3-4 mo.) infants
• First established whether newborns could
  discriminate between instances from different
  form categories in Expt 1
• Whether they could discriminate between
  instances from within a form category in Expt 2.
• Experiment 3 followed the examination of between
  and within-category discrimination in newborns

Illustration

• Strengths
• Comprehensive methodology Developmental contrast
  between newborn and older infants
• Discrimination between perceptual discrimination
  and categorization
• Weaknesses
• Categorical representation influenced by
  exemplars presented earlier
• Categories are not distinct enough in
  determining whether newborns have formed
  categorical representations of familiar forms