Early Category and Concept Development

by David H. Rakison, Lisa M. Oakes

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195142945
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/30/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Foreword: Categories, Cognitive Development, and Cognitive Science, Frank C. KeilPrefaceAcknowledgmentsContributors1. Issues in the Early Development of Concepts and Categories: An Introduction, Lisa M. Oakes and David H. RakisonPART I. CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES BEFORE THE EMERGENCE OF LANGUAGE2. Chunking Language Input to Find Patterns, Peter W. Jusczyk3. Concepts Are Not Just for Objects: Categorization of Spatial Relation Information by Infants, Paul C. Quinn4. Parsing Objects into Categories: Infants' Perception and Use of Correlated Attributes, Barbara A. Younger5. Conceptual Categorization, Jean M. Mandler6. Principles of Developmental Change in Infants' Category Formation, Lisa M. Oakes and Kelly L. Madole7. Parts, Motion, and the Development of the Animate-Inanimate Distinction in Infancy, David H. Rakison8. Commentary on Part I: Unresolved Issues in Infant Categorization, Leslie B. CohenPART II: CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES DURING EARLY LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT9. Links between Object Categorization and Naming: Origins and Emergence in Human Infants, Sandra R. Waxman10. Transaction of Child Cognitive-Linguistic Abilities and Adult Input in the Acquisition of Lexical Categories at the Basic and Subordinate Levels, Carolyn B. Mervis, John R. Pani, and Ariel M. Pani11. Making an Ontology: Cross-linguistic Evidence, Linda B. Smith, Eliana Colunga, and Hanako Yoshida12. Words, Kinds, and Causal Powers: A Theory Theory Perspective on Early Naming and Categorization, Alison Gopnik and Thierry Nazzi13. Theory-Based Categorization in Early Childhood, Susan A. Gelman and Melissa A. Koenig14. The Acquisition and Use of Implicit Categories in Early Development, Denis Mareschal15. Commentary on Part II: Abilities and Assumptions Underlying Conceptual Development, Ellen M. Markman and Vikram K. Jaswal16. Final Commentary: Conceptual Development from Origins to Asymptotes, Robert L. Goldstone and Mark K. JohansenAuthor IndexSubject Index

Editorial Reviews

"This clearly written and well-edited book adds to the chorus of opinion that might inform answers to those questions plaguing the study of reality and its construction. This book is a must-read for those who study human categorization and conceptualization. It offers an up-to-date and well-argued compendium of opinion and research from the finest minds in developmental psychology, and illuminates the current status of the empiricist-rationalist debate within psychology."-Shannon M. Pruden, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, & Julia Parish, Philosophical Psychology

From the Publisher