Negative mental representations in infancy

• Published in: Cognition Vol. 213; p. 104599
• Main Authors: Hochmann, Jean-Rémy, Toro, Juan M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.08.2021; Elsevier Science Ltd; Elsevier
• Subjects: Cognitive science; Experiments; Identity; Infancy; Infants; Language; Mental representation; Negation; Operators; Sequences; Syllables
• ISSN: 0010-0277; 1873-7838
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104599

How do infants' thoughts compare to the thoughts adults express with language? In particular, can infants entertain negative representations, such as not red or not here? In four experiments, we used pupillometry to ask whether negative representations are possible without an external language. Eleven-month-olds were tested on their ability to detect and represent the abstract structure of sequences of syllables, defined by the relations identity and/or negation: AAAA (four identical syllables; Experiment 1), AAA¬A (three times the syllable A and one final syllable that is not A; Experiment 2), AA(A)(A)¬A (two-to-four times the syllable A and one final syllable that is not A; Experiment 3). Representing the structures in Experiments 2–3 requires a form of negation. Results suggest that infants are able to compute both identity and negation. More generally, these results lend credit to the hypothesis that the infant mind is equipped with rudimentary logical operators before language takes off •Logical negation establishes a relation between two contradictory representations.•11-month-old infants learned the relational structures of syllable sequences.•They learned to expect the last syllable to be not the same as the previous ones.•Whatever the initial syllable A, the last syllable could be anything but A.•Whatever the initial syllable A, the last syllable should be not-A.