We present a domain-general framework called "constrained attentional associative learning" to provide a developmental account for how and when infants form concepts for animates and inanimates that encapsulate not only their surface appearance but also their movement characteristics. Six simulations with the same general-purpose architecture…

Consistent age changes suggest 2 overlapping developmental dimensions: (1) The ability to deal with visible versus invisible displacements, and (2) with nonsequential versus sequential displacements. Other findings are included. (MH)

Paper present the findings from a study focusing on the relationship between levels of object concept construction and achievements in several other branches of functioning. (Author/CB)

Results indicate that (1) babies have better concept of person than object as permanent, but there are important individual differences, (2) rate of person permanence development is related to infant-mother attachment, and (3) rate of person permanence development affects object permanence development. (MH)

Explored early-developing predictions of object motion through 6-month-old infants' head tracking and reaching for moving objects. Found evidence for infants' extrapolation of object motion on linear paths, in accord with principle of inertia. This tendency was remarkably resistant to counter-evidence, observed even after repeated presentations of…

An account of studies conducted by author and others concerning Piaget's view of object concept development in infants. (HS)

Three children were observed in their homes approximately once a month for one year, from their 11th through 22nd month of life. Based on observation of the children's changing nonverbal behaviors, a five-level developmental sequence documenting the evolution of the cognitive notion of agent was developed. (Author)

This study was designed to test two alternate hypotheses regarding the meaning of increased lateral head movements in infants during experiments in which the mothers' voices were displaced from their faces. One interpretation is that the lateral looking responses of the infants are attributable to maturational effects on the infants' physiological…

Presents experimental findings that indicate that some number capacity is present in 22-week old infants, long before the onset of verbal counting. Suggests that verbal counting may have precursors present during infancy. (CS)

Finds that the object concept scores of 104 infants were relatively independent of IQ and background variables, showing that object concept is the most stable developing function in infants and an accurate reflection of infant cognitive potential. (RL)

Two experiments examined six-month-olds' ability to form an abstract containment category. Results indicated that, after habituation to object pairs in a containment relation, infants looked reliably longer at an example of an unfamiliar versus familiar containment relation, indicating that they could form a categorical representation of…

Nine experiments examined 6- to 10-month-olds' formation of an abstract category representation for "between." Findings indicated that older, but not younger infants, could form an abstract category representation for "between" when performing in an object-variation version of the between categorization task. Six- to…

Maintains that Muller and Overton (1998) misrepresent her theory of infant concept formation in infancy, makes corrections to their representation, and notes that her theory was developed in part because of the lack of detailed mechanisms in Piaget's theory to account for concept formation. Argues that Muller and Overton's proposed alternative…

Research supported in part by OEO Headstart Subcontract No. 1410 with Michigan State University Headstart Evaluation and Research Center.

Some of the findings of a longitudinal study of three infants between their 11th and 22nd months to document development of linguistic expression of the agent concept indicated that first vocalizations were inconsistently associated with nonverbal agentive behaviors and later mature utterances coded agent-action-recipient events. (MC)