Object Function and Categorization in Infancy: Two Mechanisms of Facilitation
Amy E. Booth
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University

Does function facilitate categorization by focusing infants’ attention generally on all commonalities among objects or specifically on functionally relevant properties? After familiarization to a novel category, 18-month-olds selected another category member from a pair of previously unseen test objects. In Experiments 1 and 2, infants chose globally similar over functionally similar and novel test objects. Functionally similar and novel test objects were chosen equally. These data suggest that function facilitates categorization through a general attention-enhancing mechanism. However, when functions were more uniquely and transparently tied to object properties in Experiments 3 and 4, infants chose functionally similar over novel test objects. Globally and functionally similar test objects were chosen equally. Therefore, a specific attention-enhancing mechanism also sometimes supports categorization.