Early Category and Concept Development

by Rakison, David H.; Oakes, Lisa M.

• ISBN13: 9780195142945
• ISBN10: 0195142942
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Whether or not infants' earliest perception of the world is a "blooming, buzzing, confusion," it is not long before they come to perceive structure and order among the objects and events around them. At the core of this process, and cognitive development in general, is the ability to categorize--to group events, objects, or properties together--and to form mental representations, or concepts, that encapsulate the commonalities and structure of these categories. Categorization is the primary means of coding experience, underlying not only perceptual and reasoning processes, but also inductive inference and language. The aim of this book is to bring together the most recent findings and theories about the origins and early development of categorization and conceptual abilities. Despite recent advances in our understanding of this area, a number of hotly debated issues remain at the center of the controversy over categorization. Researchers continue to ask questions such as: Which mechanisms for categorization are available at birth and which emerge later? What are the relative roles of perceptual similarity and nonobservable properties in early classification? What is the role of contextual variation in categorization by infants and children? Do different experimental procedures reveal the same kind of knowledge? Can computational models simulate infant and child categorization? How do computational models inform behavioral research? What is the impact of language on category development? How does language partition the world? This book is the first to address these and other key questions within a single volume. The authors present a diverse set of views representing cutting-edge empirical and theoretical advances in the field. The result is a thorough review of empirical contributions to the literature, and a wealth of fresh theoretical perspectives on early categorization.

Author Biography

David H. Rakison is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. His research has focused on the development of categorization and induction in infancy Lisa M. Oakes is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Iowa. Her research has focused on the development of causal perception, categorization, and attention allocation in infancy

Table of Contents

Foreword: Categories, Cognitive Development, and Cognitive Science	p. v
Preface	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Contributors	p. xxi
Issues in the Early Development of Concepts and Categories: An Introduction	p. 3
Concepts and Categories Before the Emergence of Language
Chunking Language Input to Find Patterns	p. 27
Concepts Are Not Just for Objects: Categorization of Spatial Relation Information by Infants	p. 50
Parsing Objects into Categories: Infants' Perception and Use of Correlated Attributes	p. 77
Conceptual Categorization	p. 103
Principles of Developmental Change in Infants' Category Formation	p. 132
Parts, Motion, and the Development of the Animate-Inanimate Distinction in Infancy	p. 159
Commentary on Part I: Unresolved Issues in Infant Categorization	p. 193
Concepts and Categories During Early Language Development
Links between Object Categorization and Naming: Origins and Emergence in Human Infants	p. 213
Transaction of Child Cognitive-Linguistic Abilities and Adult Input in the Acquisition of Lexical Categories at the Basic and Subordinate Levels	p. 242
Making an Ontology: Cross-linguistic Evidence	p. 275
Words, Kinds, and Causal Powers: A Theory Theory Perspective on Early Naming and Categorization	p. 303
Theory-Based Categorization in Early Childhood	p. 330
The Acquisition and Use of Implicit Categories in Early Development	p. 360
Commentary on Part II: Abilities and Assumptions Underlying Conceptual Development	p. 384
Final Commentary: Conceptual Development from Origins to Asymptotes	p. 403
Author Index	p. 419
Subject Index	p. 427
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