
Early Category and Concept Development
Making Sense of the Blooming, Buzzing Confusion
David H. Rakison(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Published on 9. January 2003
Book
Hardback
464 pages
978-0-19-514293-8 (ISBN)
Description
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 commonalties 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 centre 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 non-observable properties in early classification?
What is the role of contextual variation on categorization by infants and children? Do different experimental procedures tap the same kind of knowledge? Can computational models simulate infant and child categorization, and how do these models inform behavioural 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.
What is the role of contextual variation on categorization by infants and children? Do different experimental procedures tap the same kind of knowledge? Can computational models simulate infant and child categorization, and how do these models inform behavioural 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.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
num. fig.
numerous figures
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-19-514293-8 (9780195142938)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Rakison, David (Assistant Professor of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA) / Oakes, Lisa (Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Iowa, USA)
Content
1. Issues in the early development of concepts and categories: an introduction; PART 1: CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES BEFORE THE EMERGENCE OF LANGUAGE; 2. Chunking language input to find patterns; 3. Concepts are not just for objects: categorization of spatial relation information by infants; 4. Parsing objects into categories: infants' perception and use of correlated attributes; 5. Conceptual categorization; 6. Principles of developmental change in infants' category formation; 7. Parts, motion, and the development of the animate-inanimate distinction in infancy; 8. Commentary on Part I: Unresolved issues in infant categorization; PART 2: CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES DURING EARLY LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT; 9. Links between object categorization and naming: Origins and emergence in human infants; 10. Transaction of child cognitive-linguistic abilities and adult input in the acquisition of lexical categories at the basic and subordinate levels; 11. Making an ontology: Cross-linguistic evidence; 12. Words, kinds and causal powers: A theory theory perspective on early naming and categorization; 13. Theory-based categorization in early childhood; 14. The acquisition and use of implicit categories in early development; 15. Commentary on Part II: abilities and assumptions underlying conceptual development; 16. Final commentary: conceptual development from origins to asymptotes