EVIDENCE FOR TASK-DEPENDENT CATEGORIZATION IN INFANCY

Two experiments compared infants' attention to the categorical distinc tion between people and animals in object-examining and sequential-tou ching tasks. In Experiment 1, 10- and 13-month-old infants distinguish ed between animals and people in an object-examining task. In this tas k, infants are familiarized with individual exemplars from one categor y, and then their response to exemplars from another category is measu red. In Experiment 2, 13- and 16-month-old infants, but not 10-month-o ld infants, attended to the same distinction in a sequential-touching task. In. this task, infants are presented with several exemplars from two categories simultaneously, and the order in which they touch thos e objects is assessed. Evaluation of infants' touching behavior in Exp eriment 2 also revealed developmental changes in how they approached t his task. The combined results of these two experiments confirm the ge neral trend reported in the literature and begin to provide insight in to developmental changes that contribute to infants' ability to apply their categorization skills in different task contexts.