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Article Dans Une Revue Infant Behav Dev Année : 2008

Odorization of a novel object can influence infant's exploratory behavior in unexpected ways.

Karine Durand
Benoist Schaal

Résumé

Although much is known about the development of object exploration during infancy, it remains to be understood whether and how olfaction can influence infants' interactions with novel objects. To address these issues, sixteen infants aged 7-15 months were videotaped during two consecutive 5-min free play sessions with a scented or an unscented version of visually similar objects. Results indicate that adding an odor to a novel object influenced the infants' behavior: the infants exhibited more and longer manipulations and mouthing of the unscented object than of the scented object. The differential responsiveness to the scented, relative to the unscented, object was noted after a 2-min delay following test onset, suggesting that in the present conditions infants do not immediately detect or react to the added odor. It may be concluded that infants do detect an odorant added on a novel object, show odor-based discrimination of visually similar objects, and express withdrawal of the scented, relative to the unscented, object. The implications of these findings for understanding how infants use their senses, namely their olfactory sense, in early exploratory behavior are discussed.

Domaines

Neurosciences

Dates et versions

hal-00324102 , version 1 (24-09-2008)

Identifiants

Citer

Karine Durand, Gaëlle Baudon, Laure Freydefont, Benoist Schaal. Odorization of a novel object can influence infant's exploratory behavior in unexpected ways.. Infant Behav Dev, 2008, 31 (4), epub ahead of print. ⟨10.1016/j.infbeh.2008.07.002⟩. ⟨hal-00324102⟩
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