Infants' ability to associate motion paths with object kinds.

The goal of the present research was to examine whether infants associate different paths of motion with animate beings and inanimate objects. An infant-controlled habituation procedure was used to examine 10-20-month-old infants' ability to associate a non-linear motion path (jumping) with animals and a linear (rebounding) motion path with vehicles (Experiment 1) and furniture (Experiment 2). During the habituation phase, infants saw a dog jumping over a barrier and either a vehicle or a piece of furniture rebounding off the barrier. In the test phase, infants looked longer when another inanimate object jumped rather than rebounded, but showed no such differential looking in the case of another animate object. The ability to restrict the animate motion path of jumping to animate beings was present by 10 months of age. The present findings support the hypothesis that motion path is associated with the animate-inanimate distinction early in infancy.

Preschoolers' word mapping: the interplay between labelling context and specificity of speaker information.

We assessed the effect of specificity of speaker information about an object on three-year-olds' word mappings. When children heard a novel label followed by specific information about an object at exposure, children subsequently mapped the label to that object at test. When children heard only specific information about an object at exposure, they inferred that the label applied to a different object at test. Finally, non-specific information did not assist children in mapping a word to an object. Thus, children use speaker information as a word-mapping cue but this information is interpreted differently depending on how the discourse is initiated.