Research Project
6407644
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Young pre-verbal infants classify objects as whole entities defined by their existence in space, by their movements, and by common physical features. Older infants show more sensitivity to categorical membership of objects, and to conflicts between an object's unique features and its movement, if they exist, to identify the object. The question posed by this proposal is whether a rarely studied new world primate defines an object by its orientation, its movement, its physical features, or by its categorical membership. The set of studies taps into primates' thinking about objects by noting look rate differences which capture attentional surface reactions to novelty, and by collecting choice response data when primates are judging objects to belong or to not belong to a particular set. Through the two dependent variables, and through systematic variation in orientation, movement, features, and category membership of objects, it will be possible to uncover what physical changes the primates are sensitive to when noting an object, and which physical changes make the primates include or exclude objects from a known set. It is essential for model building across primate groups that we determine it primates unrelated to humans represent objects in the same ways that we do. The studies posed here will uncover some aspects of how primates represent the physical world, and this is critical information to determine the viability of nonhuman primates as models of brain/mind functions involving cognitive and categorical representation of objects. At a time when much is written about the uniqueness of human thought, categorical representation, and language, it is essential that we determine primate-general and human-unique skills in defining and determining the fate of objects.
