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{
    "pk": 27744,
    "title": "Using object history to predict future behavior: Evidence for essentialism at 9 months of age",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "Preschool-age children show essentialism (Gelman, 2003),\nascribing an essence to an object that includes its history, and\nwhich can determine behavior. While infants show the\nprecursors of essentialism, such as maintaining object\nrepresentations during naturalistic occlusion (6-month-olds;\nKaufman, Csibra, & Johnson, 2005), and resisting\nindividuating two disparate appearances of an object when\nshown that one can change into the other (14-month-olds;\nCacchione, Schaub, & Rakoczy, 2013), the implicit precursors\nof essentialist reasoning in infants have not been directly\nstudied. Here we tested whether young infants could use an\nobject’s prior history to predict its behavior, even after it had\nchanged into a novel shape. Critically, the object either\nsmoothly morphed into the novel shape (facilitating an\nessentialist interpretation) or was replaced by a new shape\n(discouraging essentialist interpretation). Results showed that\n9-month-old infants (N = 22) in the Morph condition predicted\nthe novel object would have the same behavior as the pre-\ntransformation object; an essentialist interpretation. However,\nin the Replace condition (N = 22), predictions for the novel\nobject were at chance; infants seemed to have lost the link to\nthe pre-transformation object. Furthermore, results from a\ngroup of 6-month-olds (N = 15) showed that they failed to\nmaintain this link, even in the Morph condition (which may\nindicate a failure to apply essentialist reasoning, or, more\nlikely, a failure to adequately remember the pre-transformation\nobject and/or apply the matching rule to predict post-\ntransformation behavior).",
    "language": "eng",
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": ""
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "object representation"
        },
        {
            "word": "spatial-temporal continuity"
        },
        {
            "word": "conceptual development"
        },
        {
            "word": "essentialism"
        },
        {
            "word": "object cognition"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Publication-based-Talks",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7v51k9n4",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Chen",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Cheng",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of Massachusetts Boston",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Zsuzsa",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Kaldy",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of Massachusetts Boston",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Erik",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Blaser",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of Massachusetts Boston",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": null,
    "date_accepted": null,
    "date_published": "2018-01-01T18:00:00Z",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
        {
            "label": "PDF",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/27744/galley/17384/download/"
        }
    ]
}