[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/) # Prelinguistic Relational Concepts: Investigating Analogical Processing in Infants ## Details **Authors** Ferry et al. **Year** 2015 **Publisher** Child Development **Discipline** Human Development [Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12381) 10.1111/cdev.12381 ## In authors' words ### Abstract This research asks whether analogical processing ability is present in human infants, using the simplest and most basic relation—the same–different relation. Experiment 1 (N = 26) tested whether 7- and 9-month-olds spontaneously detect and generalize these relations from a single example, as previous research has suggested. The attempted replication failed. Experiment 2 asked whether infants could abstract the relation via analogical processing (Experiment 2, N = 64). Indeed, with four exemplars, 7- and 9-month-olds could abstract the same–different relation and generalize it to novel pairs. Furthermore, prior experience with the objects disrupted learning. Facilitation from multiple exemplars and disruption by individual object salience are signatures of analogical learning. These results indicate that analogical ability is present by 7 months. ### What they set out to do (purpose) To research the ability to process analogies in infants aged 7 to 9 months old. ### What they found (results) their results suggest that infants are able to abstract the same/different Relations. They found that the infants looked significantly longer at the novel pair than the others for both the same and different conditions, which is in contrast to their initial replication. This meant that the infants “successfully generalized the abstract relation to new objects presented for the first time in test trials.” ## Commentary ### In short While Relationships can be abstracted universally as a purely structural cognitive act, they are also content specific (that is the relationship itself is distinguishable by additional informational content such as “sameness” or “difference” or perhaps countless other content variables). ### In more detail The analogy is a common tool in which “new words and inflections are created on the basis of regularities in the form of existing ones.” Ferry et. al. 2015 researched the ability to process analogies in infants aged 7 to 9 months old. Analogical ability is defined in the text as, “the ability to make relational comparisons between objects, events, or ideas, and to think about relations independently of a particular set of arguments.” They outlined three possibilities for how analogical ability develops. First, it is innate—infants are born with skill in a series of basic relations (including the same/different Relations). The second possibility is that infants are born with analogical ability that allows them to be able to process and abstract relationships from their experiences. And lastly, the third possibility is that, “analogical ability is not an inherent capacity but is formed by combining more basic processes, guided by cultural and linguistic experience.” Ferry et. al. did two experiments to test this, but the first was an unsuccessful replication of Tyrrell et. al. 1991. For the second experiment, the major question was, “Can infants derive abstract same–different Relations from a brief series of examples, and if so does this learning process bear the signatures of analogical learning?” In this experiment, 64 healthy, full-term infants participated, roughly half were ~7 months old and the others were ~9 months old. Half of the infants were assigned the “same” condition, and half of the infants were assigned the “different” condition. While in the waiting room, the infants were exposed to some of the toys, as pictured in Figure 15 (top is same condition, bottom is different condition): 13 Definition from 14 In the waiting room infants saw a subset of the individual toys before the experiment. Infants were habituated to four pairs of objects, either same or different. In six sequential test trials looking time was recorded to the novel and familiar relational pairs in three different types of test trials (object experience, object experience + pair habituation, and novel). For the familiarization trials, the infants were exposed to a series of objects that were either the same or different. The 4 groups of stimuli are pictured in Figure 22: **Patterns it shows** R **How to cite this** Ferry et al. (2015). Prelinguistic Relational Concepts: Investigating Analogical Processing in Infants. Child Development.