How objects are held determines how they are seen, and may thereby play an important developmental role in building visual object representations. Previous research suggests that toddlers, like adults, show themselves a disproportionate number of planar object views--that is, views in which the objects' axes of elongation are perpendicular or…

Object substitutions in play (e.g. using a box as a car) are strongly linked to language learning and their absence is a diagnostic marker of language delay. Classic accounts posit a symbolic function that underlies both words and object substitutions. Here we show that object substitutions depend on developmental changes in visual object…