Distinct Labels Attenuate 15-Month-Olds’ Attention to Shape in an Inductive Inference Task

We examined the role of distinct labels on infants’ inductive inferences. Thirty-six 15-month-old infants were presented with target objects that possessed a non-obvious property, followed by test objects that varied in shape similarity relative to the target. Infants were tested in one of two groups, a Same Label group in which target and test objects were labeled with the same noun, and a Distinct Label group in which target and test objects were labeled with different nouns. When target and test objects were labeled with the same count noun, infants generalized the non-obvious property to both test objects, regardless of similarity to the target. In contrast, labeling the target and test objects with different count nouns attenuated infants’ generalization of the non-obvious property to both high and low-similarity test objects. Our results suggest that by 15 months, infants recognize that object labels provide information about underlying object kind and appreciate that distinct labels are used to designate members of different categories.