Early Differentiation within the Animate Domain: Are Humans Something Special?

This report investigates whether preverbal infants distinguish between humans and mammals within the animate domain. In Experiment 1, 3 groups, aged 7, 9, and 11 months (N = 58), participated in an object-examination task. Infants were presented with 10 different three-dimensional toy models from one category (humans or mammals), followed by an exemplar from the other category. All groups habituated to the familiarization stimuli and dishabituated to the out-of-category item. In Experiment 2, 2 groups of infants, aged 5 and 7 months (N = 40), participated in a familiarization–novelty preference task. Four pairs of color photos of objects from the same category were presented twice, and then infants received a test pair that included one new object from the already-familiar category and one out-of-category item. Infants habituated only to humans, and 7-month-olds, but not 5-month-olds, dishabituated to the out-of-category exemplar. Implications for the development of categorical thinking during the first year of life are discussed.