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Biological Motion Primes the Animate/Inanimate Distinction in Infancy

Title:

Biological Motion Primes the Animate/Inanimate Distinction in Infancy

Poulin-Dubois, Diane, Crivello, Cristina and Wright, Kristyn (2015) Biological Motion Primes the Animate/Inanimate Distinction in Infancy. PLOS ONE, 10 (2). e0116910. ISSN 1932-6203

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116910

Abstract

Given that biological motion is both detected and preferred early in life, we tested the hypothesis that biological motion might be instrumental to infants’ differentiation of animate and inanimate categories. Infants were primed with either point-light displays of realistic biological motion, random motion, or schematic biological motion of an unfamiliar shape. After being habituated to these displays, 12-month-old infants categorized animals and vehicles as well as furniture and vehicles with the sequential touching task. The findings indicated that infants primed with point-light displays of realistic biological motion showed better categorization of animates than those exposed to random or schematic biological motion. These results suggest that human biological motion might be one of the motion cues that provide the building blocks for infants’ concept of animacy.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Psychology
Item Type:Article
Refereed:Yes
Authors:Poulin-Dubois, Diane and Crivello, Cristina and Wright, Kristyn
Journal or Publication:PLOS ONE
Date:2015
Funders:
  • Concordia Open Access Author Fund
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):10.1371/journal.pone.0116910
ID Code:982232
Deposited By: Danielle Dennie
Deposited On:17 Mar 2017 19:34
Last Modified:18 Jan 2018 17:54

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