Concepts of objects and substances in language

Substances as a core domain

Central to What Babies Know (Spelke, ) is the thesis that infants' understanding is divided into independent modules of core knowledge. As a test case, we consider adding a new domain: core knowledge of substances. Experiments show that infants' understanding of substances meets some criteria of core knowledge, and they raise questions about the relations that hold between core domains.

Coordination of Caregiver Naming and Children’s Exploration of Solid Objects and Nonsolid Substances

When a caregiver names objects dominating a child’s view, the association between object and name is unambiguous and children are more likely to learn the object’s name. Children also learn to name things other than solid objects, including nonsolid substances like applesauce. However, it is unknown how caregivers structure linguistic and exploratory experiences with nonsolids to support learning. In this exploratory study of caregivers and children (n = 14, 8 girls; M = 20.50 months) we compare caregiver-child free-play with novel solid objects and novel nonsolid substances to identify the linguistic and exploratory experiences associated with children’s word learning. We found systematic differences in interactions with novel objects, such that children performed more manual actions on solids than nonsolids and caregivers named solids more than nonsolids. Additionally, there was less synchrony between caregivers’ naming and children’s manual and visual exploration of nonsolids than solids. Consistent with prior work, we found that synchronous naming was associated with accurate recognition of solid object names. However, naming synchrony was not associated with recognition of nonsolid substance names or with generalization. Together these findings, though exploratory, suggest the coordination of caregiver-child play can shape what children remember about novel word-object associations for solid objects, but not nonsolid substances.

Possible Objects: Topological Approaches to Individuation

We think of the world around us as divided into physical objects like toasters and daisies, rather than solely as a smear of properties like yellow and smooth. How do we single out these objects? One theory of object concepts uses part-of relations and relations of connectedness. According to this proposal, an object is a connected spatial item of maximal extent: Any other connected item that overlaps (i.e., shares a part with) the object must be a part of that object. This article reports four experiments that test this proposal. Participants see descriptions or diagrams of spatial items that vary across trials in their relative positions. In separate experiments, participants decide whether the items are physical objects, whether they are wholes, or how many objects are present. All experiments find support for connectedness as a contributor to object status, but they find little support for maximality. The results suggest that maximality is not a necessary feature of wholes or of objects.