HEADS YOU WIN, TAILS YOU LOSE - EVIDENCE FOR YOUNG INFANTS CATEGORIZING MAMMALS BY HEAD AND FACIAL ATTRIBUTES

Four experiments were conducted with infant and adult subjects in an e ffort to determine the perceptual cues that are used to categorically differentiate between two common animal species, cats and dogs. The st imuli were photographic exemplars of cats, dogs and cat-dog hybrids (i .e. cat head attached to dog body and dog head attached to cat body). Experiments 1 and 2 utilized the familiarization/novelty-preference pr ocedure and showed that 4-month-old infants relied on head/face inform ation to categorically differentiate between cats and dogs under condi tions of short exposure duration. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that adul t subjects also focus on head/face information in typicality ratings a nd forced-choice identifications of category membership. However, resu lts from reaction times with adults suggest that the type of informati on that becomes dominant may change with both development and task dem ands. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.