How Much Does a Shared Name Make Things Similar?

Linguistic Labels, Similarity, and the Development of Inductive Inference

Vladimir M. Sloutsky, Ya-Fen Lo, and Anna V. Fisher

Team members: Latifa Alajmi, Sarah Al Saeed, Goh Siew Li, Jenna Grabey,

Spyridon Sargentis

Introduction• Inductive Generalization

– Component of human thought• Two types of induction

– Specific induction– General induction

Cat 1 has whiskers Cat 2 should also have ______

Introduction• Two types of induction

– Specific induction– General induction

• Infants and young children are capable to specific induction generalizations- mechanisms unclear

• Similarity based or category based– Similarity based: features overlap– Category based: driven by categories not perceptual features

Cats have whiskers Tigers like cats should also have_______

Which two are more similar?

Introduction

• Limitations of similarity approach: – Too many features to compare, one has to know

which features are more important• Limitations to category approach: – Complicated: • mental representation of category identify base and

target to be members of the category knowledge of distinction between natural and theoretical kinds of that support induction knowledge of which properties are important for a particular natural kind• A lot of prior knowledge required

Focus

• Investigate how linguistic labels and perceptual similarities affect similarity judgement and induction

Authors’ hypothesis/predictions

• Fancy mathematical formulas that accounted for 2 different models– Similar perceptual feature– Label as attribute model• Labels are considered as a attribute• Label contribute more to the judgement of similarities

than other attributes

• Another formula for calculating the probability of a series of stimulus

Possible Outcomes

Theoretically there are 3 possibilities

• Labels override perceptual similarity

• Labels contributes to a degree to similarity judgement

• Labels are not import for similarity judgement- perceptual similarity is more important

Authors’ hypothesis/predictions

1. Independent of labeling, inductive generalizations in young children should vary as a function of featural overlap among the compared entities

2. Specific ordinal relations among the stimulus pattern conditions

3. Labels should contribute quantitatively to inductive inference of young children

Experiment 1

Methods• A group of 97 children– 4-5 year olds– 7-8 year olds– 11-2 year olds

Materials

Cont.I am going to show you some pictures of Aliens, soyou’ll learn more about them. Are you ready tostart? Let’s start! Here we have three Alien pictures[pictures were introduced at this point]. They comefrom different planets . . . for example, Guga andBala. Could you please repeat these names? Look atthis one. This is a Guga [points to the target]. This isa Bala [points to Test stimulus A], and this is a Guga[points to Test stimulus B]. This Guga has yellowblood inside the body. Which one of them [points totwo Test stimuli] has yellow blood inside the bodylike this Guga? Does this Guga [points to Test stimulusB] have yellow blood inside the body like thisGuga [points to the target] or does this Bala [pointsto Test stimulus A] have yellow blood inside thebody like this Guga [points to the target]?

• Stimulus Pattern– Six levels– T-00, T-11, T-22, T-10, T-21, and T-20

Design

Variables

Label/ No-Label Age Stimulus pattern

Results

• Labelling and 11-12 year olds• Younger children – similarity-

based• Older children – category-

based

Results Cont’d

11-12 year olds100%

7-8year olds56%

4-5 year olds39%

Discussion

• Good overall fit between predicted and observed data

• Developmental differences• Label-as-attribute model = stimuli specific?• Humanlike stimuli?

• Experiment 2

Experiment 2

• 26 (4-5)• 40 (undergrads)• Similar results to Exp. 1 expected• instead of using alien faces, photographs of

animals were morphed.• Results similar to Exp 1

Experiment 2:• Replicate finding of experiment using naturalistic

stimuli using different sampling

4-5 years old26 children

Undergraduate students

40 young adults

Methods• 20 unique animal photographs were grouped into 10

pairs. • An example of a morphed sequence with a cat

morphed into a dog is presented.

Methods

• Triads of animals presented in each trial

• Two test stimuli and one of which was a Target

• There are 3 groups of stimulus– 0.0 difference– 0.5 difference– 0.9 difference

Experiment 2 Results & Discussion

Experiment 2 Results & Discussion • Aimed to replicate findings of Exp 1 using natural stimuli; this was achieved

Experiment 1

Experiment 2

General DiscussionAuthors explain the developmental shift• From knowledge lean to knowledge based

– Increase reliance on a single most predictive attribute based on knowledge– Hence increase reliance on labels

• Developmental shift is due to gaining knowledge and experience that labels are important.

• In absence of labels, both children and adults will rely on perceptual similarities

Future Research

• Effects of perceptual AND non perceptual attributes (e.g kinship) on induction on young children

• Attentional weights (%)? - which classes of attributes are more important

• How occluded parts of objects add to computation of similiarity

• Even younger children? And ages 6,9, and 10 .

Thoughts and critical evaluation• Decent sample sizes and well designed study• Addresses child development across ages• Results are consistent with other studies

– Infants from a young age are sensitive to detecting invariants present in the visual system (Clearfield and Mix, 1999; Feigenson et al 2002)

– Children initially make inferences based on whole object similarity and acquire the ability to make inferences based on relational roles to objects which are bound (as reviewed by Doumas, et al 2008)

– Similarity Induction naming categorization (SINC) model (Sloutsky and Fisher, 2004)

• Considered different hypothesis/predictions• Deal with confounding factor

– Different visual attributes may be more important than others• Random assignment of features• Calibration study: only stimulus deemed as equally similar for young children and

undergrads were included.

Thoughts and critical evaluation• Described semantic development of linguistic labels, only for

animate objects• How about inanimate, verbs, adjectives, adverbs?

– Similar? Differences?• Use of naturalistic stimuli, however just pictures not real

objects– Perhaps other cues e.g smell or texture or acoustic cues also

contribute to the development of inductive inference?• Does not addressed how the inductive generalization may

occur in real world– labels are seldom presented in isolation– Presented as part of a phrase or sentence or even in a narrative

Thank you for your attention

References:• Clearfield, M. W., & Mix, K. S. (1999). Number versus contour length in

infants' discrimination of small visual sets. Psychological Science, 10(5), 408-411.

• Colunga, E., & Smith, L. B. (2005). From the lexicon to expectations about kinds: a role for associative learning. Psychological review, 112(2), 347.

• Doumas, L. A., Hummel, J. E., & Sandhofer, C. M. (2008). A theory of the discovery and predication of relational concepts. Psychological Review, 115, 1, 1-43

• Feigenson, L., Carey, S., & Spelke, E. (2002). Infants' discrimination of number vs. continuous extent. Cognitive psychology, 44(1), 33-66

• Sloutsky, V. M. Y.-F. L. A. V. F. (2002). How much does a shared name make things similar? Linguistic labels, similarity, and the development of inductive inference.Sage Family Studies Abstracts, 24, 2, 143-276.