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How
do infants tell the difference between dogs and cats?
Quinn et al at the department of Psychology, Washington and
Jefferson College, Washington have been investigating about
the manner in which babies learn to tell the difference between
dogs and cats. It is interesting to know that infants even
at the age of 3 and 4 months can tell the difference between
dogs and cats.
The
interesting question is to find out how they do that. Quinn
et al observed that infants learn to recognize dogs and cats
as two different animals by visual clues. What they do is
to observe the head and specifically the silhouette of the
head. This appears to give them enough clues to be able to
tell whether the creature that they observe is a dog or cat.
It
appears that infants do not really look at other parts of
the body, but just restrict themselves to looking at the head
to spot the vital difference between dog and cat. One can
conclude on the basis of this observation that infants get
clues and get cued in on identification by merely looking
at the shape or silhouette of the head.
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