Infant and Adult Object Cognition Differences

Susan Carey details in length many commonalities and differences between adult and infant object cognition. Before delving into the specifics of these two levels of cognition, it is important to note the processes that correspond to the formation of concepts. Carey explains the varying types of processes that carry on over three courses of time. One of the time courses discussed is individual learning, which involves quite literally individual learning. The second time course is historical/cultural construction. This time course dictates concepts that are formed through individual learning as well as sociocultural processes. An example of this would be the concept of a kayak or gene, something learned from human culture. The third time course is evolutionary time. This time course provides concepts such as objects and numbers.

The concept of object individuation relies on two different systems of representation. One of the systems is conceptual. An example that provides clarity on the conceptuality representation was the belief that when one dies, the person ceases to exist even though their body is still existent. The second concept of representation is the mid-level visual system. This visual system creates object files by assigning spatiotemporal indexes to attended objects. The mid-level visual system is what studies prove to dictate the way in which young infants are able to identify object representations.

Infants have been shown to have innate abilities that allow them to recognize the similarity between visuality/textuality and shapes/textures. Carey uses a study conducted by Andrew Meltzoff and his colleagues to provide evidence of this innate faculty. The study involved infants that were given one of two oddly shaped pacifiers to suck on. One of the pacifiers was a smooth square shape and the other was spherical with a bumpy texture. It was noted these infants were days old and had no previous textures in their mouth besides their mother’s nipple or their own hands. When shown images of each of the pacifiers the infants displayed a looking preference to the pacifier they used. This study displays one commonality between adult and infant object cognition. One may infer that the main difference between adult and infant cognition stem from not yet developed systems of representation.

One major difference found between infant object cognition and adult object cognition is the ability to use kind differences for object individuation. This contrast is exhibited within a study conducted by Fei Xu involving 10- and 12-month-old infants. The participants in this study were shown a red cylinder and a blue ball. They were shown one of the objects and this object was then placed behind a screen and then the next object was shown and also placed behind a screen. The 10-month-old infants displayed surprise when shown the two items simultaneously, while the 12-month-old infants displayed no surprise similarly to the way an adult would expect to see the two objects. This experiment provides evidence of how the capacity to use kind difference for object individuation before the age of 12 months is not yet developed.

Another key difference is the set number capacity of objects that can be tracked by infants and adults. Infants work capacity memory matures over the first year and reaches adult level of three to four objects by 10 months. In one study conducted infants were shown sets of one, two, three, four, and six entities. They were shown a set followed by a pause and a new set with one element’s color changed. The 4 and 6-month-old infants displayed a working memory that can hold one element but were unable to discriminate a change when the set size was two or higher. The 10-month-old infants were able discriminate the changing sets up to the 4 count. This study concludes that the infants set capacity develops fully by the age of 10 months but before that age infants can only keep track of one element.

Carey provides examples of biological explanations behind the stages of maturation that correlate with the development of characteristically adult object cognition. The similarities shared with adult and infant object cognition stem from innate representational abilities. Some of the adult object cognition mechanisms develop as early as 10 months of age. The studies provided by Carey deduce that mechanisms used in adult object cognition develop fully in infants as early as 10 months to one year of life. The key differences in object cognition are short term and seem to also correlate with the time period in which infants are pre-verbal.