PERCEPTUAL CUES THAT PERMIT CATEGORICAL DIFFERENTIATION OF ANIMAL SPECIES BY INFANTS

Fight experiments were performed to determine the perceptual cues used by 3- and 4-month-old infants to categorically distinguish between pe rceptually similar natural animal species. These experiments provided evidence that information from the facial and head region, specificall y, the internal features of the face and the external contour of the h ead, give the infant a necessary and sufficient basis to form a catego rical representation for cats that excludes dogs. The results are disc ussed in terms of Johnson and Morton's (1991) theory of facial recogni tion and more general accounts of the information underlying categoric al representations. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.