The role of bottom-up processing in perceptual categorization by 3-to 4-month-old infants: Simulations and data

Category

Journal Article

Authors

French, R. M., Mareschal, D., Mermillod, M., Quinn, P. C.

Year

2004

Title

The role of bottom-up processing in perceptual categorization by 3-to 4-month-old infants: Simulations and data

Journal / book / conference

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Abstract

Disentangling bottom-up and top-down processing in adult category learning is notoriously difficult. Studying category learning in infancy provides a simple way of exploring category learning while minimizing the contribution of top-down information. Three- to 4-month-old infants presented with cat or dog images will form a perceptual category representation for cat that excludes dogs and for dog that includes cats. The authors argue that an inclusion relationship in the distribution of features in the images explains the asymmetry. Using computational modeling and behavioral testing, the authors show that the asymmetry can be reversed or removed by using stimulus images that reverse or remove the inclusion relationship. The findings suggest that categorization of nonhuman animal images by young infants is essentially a bottom-up process.

Issue

3

Volume

133

Pages

382-397

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