Categorisation in infancy: Investigating the learning mechanisms involved in categorisation in the first years of life

Categorisation is a fundamental skill underlying many higher-level cognitive functions. Grouping objects by similarity allows infants to structure the world around them and to generalise knowledge and actions to novel situations. How do infants begin to form categories? What cues do they use to group objects and determine category membership? This PhD project will aim to investigate the learning mechanisms involved in categorisation in the first years of life.
Potential projects include (but are not limited to):
(a) the interaction of categorisation and word learning;
(b) the role of information in other modalities (auditory or haptic features) in visual similarity perception;
(c) the role of feature variability and the identification of diagnostic features;
(d) the role of visual saliency.
The research will involve eye-tracking studies with infants, possibly in combination with computational modelling approaches or other behavioural measures. The development of novel training paradigms (e.g. using gaze-contingent eye tracking) is a possibility.

A list of relevant publications can be found at https://www.uea.ac.uk/psychology/people/profile/n-althaus .
Interested candidates should email Nadja Althaus at [Email Address Removed] to discuss potential proposals.