Experiments have also shown that children can make the animate/inanimate distinction regarding self-generated movement. In essence, young children can understand that animate objects have the ability to move deliberately and independently, whereas the movement of inanimate objects must involve the actions of an external force. For example, 3 and 4 year olds were able to look at pictures from two animate categories (mammals and non-mammals) and three inanimate categories (statues, wheeled objects and complex rigid objects) and successfully state which would be able to move up and down a hill on their own (Massey and Gelman, 1988). The animate/inanimate distinction made here was based on more than simple perceptual information, as the animate objects were never pictured moving, and their legs were seldom evident. Moreover, of the inanimate objects the statues displayed many of the same perceptual categories as the animate objects. One implication of the findings from all of these movement researches is that the children could look at perceptual differences in movement and infer that animate objects movement is unpredictable as it more than mere locomotion, but rather the result of a series of mental processes. Another is that they had categorical knowledge of animate and inanimate objects that let them recognise members of the two categories and resultantly predict their function and behaviour.
The extremely young age at which some basic knowledge of the animate/inanimate distinction has been displayed (as young as 5 months) also supports the theory that biological information is at least to some extent inherent. At this age there has been very little time and limited cognitive resources for this sort of information to have been learned. Thus it has been suggested that humans are born with some sort of conceptual framework of biological knowledge that gets expanded upon and refined as the child grows and has more experiences. Thus evidence of the animate/inanimate distinction in children can have important implications on the ‘nature verses nurture’ debate that is prevalent in many areas of developmental psychology.
Another area of study that exemplifies children’s understanding of the animate/inanimate distinction is that of the assumption of shared core properties (Goswami, 1998). It could be said that whereas the exterior of an object can help understanding of its form and function, the inside is a strong indicator of the object’s nature. In one such study 3 and 4 year olds were shown three pictures at a time and were then asked questions based on the interior or exterior of the objects shown, such as ‘which has the same insides as x?’ or ‘which looks the same as x?’ (x being the subject of the first of every three pictures presented). The triads used consisted of one animate object (x), one perceptually similar inanimate object and one perceptually dissimilar (but internally similar animate object e.g. a pig, a piggy bank and a cow. Accuracy of both ages in answering the questions was significantly above chance levels, but the 4 year olds were seen to perform much better (with 78% accuracy compared to 58% in the 3 year olds)(Gelman and Wellman, 1991). These findings can be used to further support the idea that children’s understanding of the animate/inanimate distinction gets better and more explicit with age. From this it can also be seen to support the implication that the biological knowledge a child has (and thus their conceptual categorisation as a whole) is honed through and refined through experience.
Similar experiments have been used to suggest that even the younger children often display some abstract knowledge about the composition of animate and inanimate things, despite not having any direct (‘concrete’) experience. Simons and Keil (1995) used a puppet character to engage children of 3, 4 and 5 years, which asked them to ‘help him’ differentiate from a group of pictures which objects had ‘real insides’. A number of conditions were used, the first involved the pictures being presented in pairs (one animate and one inanimate subject) and the children having to indicate which had the real insides. The second had the pictures being presented individually and the children indicating which of three glass containers held the most accurate representation of the insides of the item. One jar had biological matter in it, one had machinery parts, and the third contained a hybrid, involving rocks suspended in a coloured gelatine substance. What the results of this experiment showed was that children (especially the younger groups) may not have known exactly what the insides of each individual item looked like, but they did know roughly what they were looking for, and what was more likely. Once more this implies a basic and a categorical understanding of biological entities, but moreover it shows the ability at an early age to make inferences from these understandings.
Studies into children’s understanding of growth have also provided information on their understanding of the animate/inanimate distinction. These studies were based upon the principle that animate entities are subject to change over time in areas such as colour, size and appearance, whereas artefacts remain the same bar external wear and tear. One study, carried out on 3 and 5 year olds (Rosengren et al, 1991) showed by the age of 5 children have a clear understanding of the distinction between animate and inanimate potentials for growth and change. At only 3 years however the children were seen to be uncertain as to this potential in inanimate objects, although they still had a clear understanding of it in animate objects. The implication of this is that the understanding of animate and inanimate objects does not progress in parallel, but that understanding of biological entities comes first. This in itself suggests that a basic conceptual knowledge of the two is necessary before the distinction between them can develop.
What may also be implied from these findings is that the animate/inanimate distinction may not merely rely on a bipolar categorisation system, but may instead also employ an analogous method of understanding. This may be why the 3-year-old group in the experiment was sometimes seen to assume that artefacts have the same potential for growth as biological entities. When this possibility was examined it was shown that the analogy often employed was that of people. To test this, Inagaki and Hatano (1987) gave 4, 5, 8 and ten year olds a list of items (both animate and inanimate) and asked the children to put them in a rank order of how similar they were to people. These objects included rabbits, fish, trees, flowers and stones. The children were then asked questions about the properties of these objects, with all of the properties being ones that humans have (eg ‘does x breath/feel pain?’ or ‘does x have a stomach?’). Across all the age groups, the further the object was from people on the original ranking list, the less often they were attributed the properties in the questions. Even the 4 year olds only attributed physiological properties to stones 15% of the time. This may be seen to imply that children’s understanding of the animate/inanimate distinction is not as ‘black and white’ as it may have at first appeared. Rather than merely distinguishing an object as animate or inanimate, even young children may be considering subordinate levels of categorisation involving relative levels of animacy.
Children’s understanding of the animate/inanimate distinction is thus far from simple. It can be seen to have theories of categorisation at its core, but may assimilate complex methods of analogous distinction, especially as the categories become refined with age. Moreover, the implications of this understanding affect many other areas of developmental psychology. In particular it aids the understanding of the acquisition of biological knowledge. It seems to be a precursor to much of the biological knowledge that develops during childhood (especially abstract knowledge), and yet is itself seen to have some basic, fundamental (and possibly innate) biological knowledge at its core. This adds an interesting angle to the debate over the extent to which knowledge and ability is inherent (if at all) and how much it is learned through teaching and experience.
References:
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