Recent research indicates that infants can draw on at least two sources of information to individuate objects involved in occlusion events: (a) featural (i.e., the shape, size, color, or pattern of an object) and (b) physical (i.e., knowledge about the lawful ways that objects move and interact). However, whether infants demonstrate this ability depends on the task used. When an event monitoring task is used (i.e., infants must judge whether successive portions of an event are consistent), infants demonstrate the ability to use featural information by 4.5 months of age, and some forms of physical information by 3.5 months of age (Aguiar & Baillargeon, 1997; Wilcox & Baillargeon, 1997). In contrast, when an event mapping task is used (i.e., infants must retrieve a representation of one event and compare it to a subsequent event), older infants often fail (Wilcox & Baillargeon, in press; Xu & Carey, 1996). The goal of the proposed research is to examine more closely the mapping problem and to identify the processes that infants engage in when they attempt to retrieve representations of occlusion events. The proposed research has been organized into two sections. The first section investigates infants ability to map occlusion events that involve two featurally distinct objects. These experiments address the question of how infants organize and map events that require binding features to individuals. The second section investigates infants ability to map occlusion events that involve two identical objects. These experiments address two issues: (a) infants ability to draw on different forms of physical knowledge to individuate objects and (b) event ambiguity and how it contributes to mapping difficulties. Together, the results of the proposed research will provide new insight into the way that infants form representations of occlusion events and how infants use these representations when reasoning about other physical events. The results will also provide direction for future research that will focus on the investigation of event representations in infancy.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Small Research Grants (R03)
Project #
1R03HD036741-01
Application #
2678072
Study Section
Pediatrics Subcommittee (CHHD)
Project Start
1998-08-25
Project End
2000-07-31
Budget Start
1998-08-25
Budget End
1999-07-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
1998
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Texas Arlington
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
064234610
City
Arlington
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
76019
Woods, Rebecca J; Wilcox, Teresa (2013) Posture support improves object individuation in infants. Dev Psychol 49:1413-24
Wilcox, Teresa; Smith, Tracy; Woods, Rebecca (2011) Priming infants to use pattern information in an object individuation task: the role of comparison. Dev Psychol 47:886-97
Woods, Rebecca J; Wilcox, Teresa (2010) Covariation of color and luminance facilitate object individuation in infancy. Dev Psychol 46:681-90
Wilcox, Teresa; Smith, Tracy R (2010) The development of infants' use of property-poor sounds to individuate objects. Infant Behav Dev 33:596-604
Wilcox, Teresa; Woods, Rebecca; Chapa, Catherine (2008) Color-function categories that prime infants to use color information in an object individuation task. Cogn Psychol 57:220-61
Wilcox, Teresa; Woods, Rebecca; Chapa, Catherine et al. (2007) Multisensory exploration and object individuation in infancy. Dev Psychol 43:479-95
Woods, Rebecca J; Wilcox, Teresa (2006) Infants' ability to use luminance information to individuate objects. Cognition 99:B43-52
Wilcox, Teresa; Chapa, Catherine (2004) Priming infants to attend to color and pattern information in an individuation task. Cognition 90:265-302
Wilcox, Teresa; Chapa, Catherine (2002) Infants' reasoning about opaque and transparent occluders in an individuation task. Cognition 85:B1-10