In recent psychology news, researchers have discovered that babies from at least four months old are already employing sophisticated categorization.
We all take categorization for granted, but it helps us understand the world. We place cars in the category of automobiles, ways of traveling, by color by engine specs, etc
In the same way, we can classify animals.
Recent research suggests that by the age of four months babies are already classifying things according to inanimate or animate.
In a unique method, researchers tracked the eye movements of babies as they observed pictures of inanimate vs animate objects.
From the article:
"The scientists recorded the babies' eye movements and the durations of their gaze as they looked at pairs of pictures representing animate or inanimate things from eight different categories (e.g., human faces and natural or artificial objects). The data obtained from eye tracking on babies were matched with measures of brain activity obtained from a group of adults using fMRI, in order to determine the correspondence between the categorical object organisation emerging from the babies' eyes and that mapped on the adults' visual cortex."
The study revealed that babies already by the age of 4 could tell there was a higher link between crocodiles and man as opposed to a tree based on the animation of the former. As babies develop more sophisticated categorizations come into play with furriness becoming a factor and so on.
"This study* shows that humans are born with a neural organisation predisposed to representing object categories crucial to their survival."
The summary of the research is here:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220216112257.htm
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it should open when you click on it:
https://evehfritz.wixsite.com/website