1) open research question/project idea: 
Investigate the relationship between novelty and preferred viewing in 
adults--is it the same or different than that found in babies?
2) Short answer: 
What are two proposals that researchers have made for the structure of 
category representations? 
3) Multiple choice: 
Monkey, bat, whale, dog, horse: 
A) lizard 
B) stool 
C) deer 
D) bird


1. Open Research Question: What parts of "attractive faces" are babies 
attracted to? We could try answering this question with the simplification 
process discussed earlier. Computer aided "blurring" of the non-target 
areas can be used prior to comparing the attractive and unattractive faces. 
Which features cause a major discrepancy?
2. Short Answer Question: What is the basic principal behind novelty 
preference task and how does it relay information about how a baby 
categorizes objects?
3. Which of the following is the proper hierarchy of categories (high ->
low)? 
a. individual exemplars; basic; superordinate; subordinate 
b. basic; subordinate; individual exemplars; superordinate 
c. subordinate; superordinate; basic; individual exemplars 
d. superordinate; basic; subordinate; individual exemplars


Research Question: 
What might be some objective criteria for a "base-level" category (which 
match the empirical "definition")?
Short Answer Question: 
Why does Virgil "see" but yet "not see?"
Multiple Choice Question: 
Suppose we conduct the following experiment (as did Posner & Keele). Babies 
are trained on a bunch of DISTORTED triangles. We then present them (in the 
test phase) with two images: one of the distorted triangles on which the 
baby was trained and a more-or-less perfect triangle. What kind of 
predictions might we make?
a. If categorization is based on remembering exemplars, then the baby will 
look longer at the undistorted triangle. If categorization is based on 
abstraction, then the baby will look longer at the distorted triangle on 
which it was trained.
b. If categorization is based on remembering exemplars, then the baby will 
look longer at the distorted triangle on which it was trained. If 
categorization is based on abstraction, then the baby will look longer at 
the undistorted triangle.
c. The baby should look equally long at either image no matter whether 
categorization is based on exemplars or abstraction.
d. None of the above. 


1. Do infant preferences for familiar faces (e.g. mother’s face) extend to 
faces of relatives (e.g. aunt’s face, sibling’s face)?
2. Compare and contrast the views of early cognitive development held by 
Elizabeth Spelke and Renee Baillargeon, citing supportive evidence and 
problems for both.
3. Which of the following seems to demonstrate an infant’s perception and 
understanding of object unity? 
a. After habituation to a moving rod whose center was occluded by a box and 
whose parts showed a common motion, the infant looked longer at a complete 
rod. 
b. After habituation to a moving rod whose center was occluded by a box and 
whose parts showed a common motion, the infant looked longer at a broken rod. 
c. No preference was shown for either a broken rod or a complete rod after 
habituation to a moving rod whose center was occluded by a box and whose 
parts showed a disjointed motion (i.e. the part above the box moved in an 
opposing manner to the part below the box) 
d. Preference was shown for a broken rod after habituation to a moving rod 
whose center was occluded by a box and whose parts showed a disjointed motion.


Open question: 
Some researchers claim there is a link between the 7 +/-2 rule and the 
threshold of 6 distorted patterns necessary to create a prototype. The 
argument is that when more than 6 exemplars are present, the brain can't 
individually code them all. An alternate hypothesis is that the brain codes 
a prototype when it has enough data points to smoothly interpolate between 
them to create a prototype. If this is the case, there would be a 
correlation between the magnitude of distortions of the exemplars and the 
number of exemplars necessary to form a prototype. Design an experiment to 
test this hypothesis.
Short Answer: 
The story of Virgil has the central thesis that experience is essential for 
perception. Discuss two studies we've read about in class which support 
this idea.
Multiple Choice: 
Why is infant cognition questionable? 
a) Infants are either stimulated by novel stimuli or comforted by familiar 
stimuli. 
b) It is impossible to tell if an infant has a coherent and consistent 
mental state. 
c) Infants have imperfect control of their physical actions. 
d) All of the above.


1) Though he was basicly blind from birth he had some visual input. How 
might the situation have differed if he had never recieved any visual input?
2) What problems did he encounter when his vision was restored? 
a)failure to fixate 
b)poor depth perception 
c)failure to recognise objects visually 
d)all of the above
3)Would he have had the same difficulty adjusting if he regained his sight 
at a much earlier age, say 12?

Open question: 
If babies seem to have implicit face detection abilities, are there other 
innate representations?


Short Answer: 
Explain the difference between exemplar-based and prototype-based 
categorization.


Multiple Choice: 
If dog is at the basic level of a categorization, which of the following 
would be correct? 
a. Mammals would be a superordinate category. 
b. Pugs would be a superordinate category. 
c. Mammals would be a subordinate category. 
d. None of the above.


1. Piaget (and others') studies suggest that perceptual development
progresses in generally the same manner for all children. For instance, at
a certain age children gain the ability to understand that a shorter, wider
container can hold more liquid than a taller narrower container. Can these
perceptions be accelerated by training? Or are there
structural/neurological(?) constraints to childrens' minds that prohibit it? 
2. In "to see and not see" what kinds of problems did Virgil have with his
newly recovered vision? 
3. What did Virgil collect to help him understand his newfound sight? 
a. figurines (correct) 
b. books on object recognition 
c. photographs 
d. cartoons

Andrew Yip <ayip@MIT.EDU>

Open research question/project idea:
Cohen found a lack of surprise in 8-month-olds at computer imagery 
of a ball rolling through a solid wall. This is cited as evidence 
contradicting Baillargeon's findings with rotating screens. However, 
by 8-months of age infants may already have been frequently exposed 
to television, which often contains "impossible" events, and so they 
may not expect events on screen to obey the same laws as real 
objects. Moreover, computer imagery is often easily discernible from 
reality, which could have further influenced infants' expectations. 
Further study comparing infant response to real and 
computer-generated events which have a high degree of visual 
similarity could help explain Cohen's findings.


Short answer question:
How did cross-modal transfer aid Virgil's adjustment to visual perception?


Multiple choice question:
When do children develop an object concept?
a) at birth
b) at 4 months of age
c) at 18 months of age
d) the timing is still debated, but seems to be earlier than the 18 months
originally proposed by Piaget