Which Statement Is True Anout Babies Ability to Catagorize
Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci. Author manuscript; bachelor in PMC 2013 Feb 22.
Published in final edited form equally:
PMCID: PMC3579639
NIHMSID: NIHMS441165
Child categorization
Abstract
Categorization is a process that spans all of development, beginning in primeval infancy nonetheless changing as children's knowledge and cognitive skills develop. In this review article, nosotros address three core issues regarding childhood categorization. Commencement, we talk over the extent to which early categories are rooted in perceptual similarity versus knowledge-enriched theories. Nosotros argue for a composite perspective in which categories are steeped in commonsense theories from a immature age simply likewise are informed by low-level similarity and associative learning cues. Second, we examine the role of language in early categorization. We review evidence to advise that linguistic communication is a powerful means of expressing, communicating, shaping, and supporting category knowledge. Finally, we consider categories in context. We discuss sources of variability and flexibility in children's categories, as well as the ways in which children'due south categories are used within larger knowledge systems (e.g., to form analogies, brand inferences, or construct theories). Categorization is a process that is intrinsically tied to about all aspects of knowledge, and its study provides insight into cognitive development, broadly construed.
Keywords: Categorization, Children, Concepts, Language evolution, Cognitive development
Ane of the master means of organizing experience is to categorize, past treating discriminably different instances as alike. Categorization takes place when an baby separates out carrots from peas on her dinner plate; when a toddler says "doggie" in the presence of domestic dog pictures, toy dogs, and the family pet; when a teenager decides which classmates are "emos", "jocks", or "nerds"; and when a chemist identifies the elements in a sample of rock. Infants and young children spontaneously categorize the globe around them, in their unprompted sorting behaviors [ane], sequential touching and object-examination responses [2], and visual or auditory habituation patterns [3]. Categorization is ubiquitous.
For adults and children alike, categories serve two primary functions [4]: (1) they permit an efficient means of storing and retrieving information, such that nosotros need not continue track of every private item we see, and (2) they promote inferences that extend knowledge beyond past experiences into the time to come, allowing us to make predictions that guide behavior. Understanding how items become together is foundational to adaptive action and trouble-solving. Indeed, categorization or definitions are elements in tests of intellectual functioning such as the WAIS.
The report of categorization in children is of detail interest because categories are at the center of core debates regarding the nature of idea and the nature of development. Some of these debates include: is there qualitative change in development? To what extent are children's categories built up from depression-level perceptual features versus informed by theories? Are there innate concepts? To what extent are categories constructed individually versus informed past cultural input? Does language guide or decide thought?
Examining children's categories is as well revealing about children's developing conventionalities systems across a wide range of domains, including naïve biology (e.thousand., living vs. non-living), social reasoning (classifying people by race, gender, personality traits, etc.), wellness (which foods are nutritious), and so along. In all of these domains, cultural knowledge is embedded in categories. For example, how children reason nearly social relationships and in-groups versus out-groups is deeply informed by studying the nature and development of social categories, and is a timely topic of great current interest [v].
This brief review is organized into three main sections. Starting time, nosotros address a central developmental argue regarding the ground of children'south categorization, namely, the extent to which early on categories are rooted in perceptual similarity versus knowledge-enriched theories. We argue for a composite view in which categories are steeped in commonsense theories from a young historic period but also are informed by low-level similarity and associative learning cues. 2nd, nosotros examine the role of language in early categorization. We review evidence to advise that language is a powerful means of expressing, communicating, shaping, and supporting category cognition. Finally, nosotros consider categories in context. We discuss sources of variability and flexibility in children'southward categories, making the point that children can reveal very different levels of competence depending on the task, content, and context. Additionally, we briefly examine how categories are used within larger knowledge systems (eastward.thou., to course analogies, make inferences, or construct theories). Throughout our focus is primarily on the period from roughly 2 years of age (when children take begun to demonstrate expressive language abilities) through elementary schoolhouse, every bit this is a period of rapid growth in categorization. The period of infancy volition be touched on only briefly, as it goes beyond the scope of the nowadays article.
What is the basis of children's categories?
A classic question for cerebral scientists is the degree to which developmental modify can exist characterized as continuous or discontinuous. This question has received much debate within the area of categorization. Certainly young children have much less factual knowledge than older children and adults (a quantitative difference), simply the more controversial question is whether there is qualitative change in the structure, processes, or function of the categories formed at dissimilar points in development.
Over the past two decades, persistent argue has taken a somewhat dissimilar form: to what extent are children'southward categories based on available percepts solitary and to what extent do they also make use of deeper sorts of information, such every bit causal and functional cues? Adults' categories exercise not reduce to perceptual features lonely; instead, they reverberate domain-specific knowledge and theories [six]. For example, legless lizards await remarkably like snakes yet are classified equally lizards based on biological properties. More than generally, features that participate in causal theories are weighted more than heavily than features that are only associated with other features, and features that are causes are weighted more than heavily than features that are effects [7]. Some researchers accept proposed that only adults possess theory-based categories, and that in contrast, young children are limited to considering salient perceptual features and linking them past means of associative learning processes [8]. In dissimilarity, others have argued that children's categories incorporate non-obvious, theory-based features from the commencement [9]. In this section we briefly review the evidence. The position nosotros endorse is that children's categories make apply of both theories and similarity, from early on in development.
Similarity and associative learning models
There are numerous "minimalist" theories of early on categorization, all resting on the idea that categorization reflects low-level cues that are present in the surround. Similarity-based models propose that categories are rooted in sensory and perceptual experiences that are analyzed past means of general-purpose processes lone (including associative learning, similarity assessment, and attentional weighting) [x] [eleven]. Moreover, college-level conceptual processes are unnecessary to account for children'southward categorization skills. Thus, for example, if a preschool child classifies an item differently when it is labeled ("Encounter this bird?") versus in a no-discussion control condition ("Meet this?"), this is considering the give-and-take increases the similarity among the objects receiving the same characterization.
Featural similarity and associative learning announced to play important roles in children's category acquisition. For example, infants are sensitive to perceptual similarity when forming categories of animals and simple artifacts [12]. Furthermore, associative learning strengthens the utilise of sure features over others. Thus, children'south tendency to extend novel words on the ground of shape more other features such as size, texture, or color, is strengthened by repeated experiences with contexts that highlight shape and associate aforementioned-shaped objects with a mutual characterization [xiii]. Basic learning mechanisms enable the child to build upward a rich (just atheoretical) network of correlated features, including labels. Infants as well as adults are sensitive to the statistical patterns characterizing cross-situational word and reference co-occurrences and can put this learning to apply in learning correct mappings [14]. This impressive capacity to runway word-referent associations beyond time is proposed as one possible mechanism to explicate seemingly "smart" word learning behaviors such as fast-mapping [15, 16].
Theory-based models
Theory-based models differ from similarity and associative-learning models in proposing that children's categories are informed past factors across immediate sensory or perceptual cues and/or past associations. Theory-based models do non deny the importance of similarity and associative learning in children'southward representations [17], simply propose that such features are predictive of "deeper" similarities. Thus, for example, young children brandish a powerful bias to attend to shape [thirteen], nonetheless if shape is placed in competition with intended role (e.thou., ii objects have the same shape but different intended functions), then 3-year-olds no longer display a shape bias [xviii]. Similarly, fifty-fifty two-year-olds categorize objects based on functional features that disharmonize with surface appearances, as long as the functions are plausible and distinctive [19] [20]. Besides, three- and 4-year-olds categorize objects based on causal features, as long equally the causal links are conspicuously and consistently demonstrated [21] [22].
Indeed, causal links tin can fifty-fifty override perceptual similarity, such that children provide 2 identical items with distinct labels, if their causal consequences differ [23]. For instance, if one cake makes a machine calorie-free up but and then an identical cake has no result, preschool children explain inconsistent effects by relabeling items, for example, "It looks similar a toma, but it's non. It'south not really a toma at all" (meet Fig. 1). The ability to link labels to causal furnishings is in place in early preschool [24] merely also become more sophisticated throughout the preschool years [22].
Approximately l% of four- and five-yr-olds spontaneously provided labels based on the causal features of the blocks rather than the perceptual features of the blocks. Source: Legare, Gelman, & Wellman (2010), Inconsistency with prior cognition triggers children's causal explanatory reasoning. Reprinted with the permission of Wiley-Blackwell.
Theory-based models also predict that categories will be sensitive to the domain in which objects appear. Thus, for case, preschoolers attend more to color in classifying foods than artifacts, because color is more predictive in the domain of food (e.g., carrots and parsnips can exist distinguished by color, whereas shirts or cars can exist any color) [25]. Besides, ii- and iii-twelvemonth-olds attend more than to texture in classifying animals than artifacts, because the presence of, for example, fur versus feathers has of import functional consequences [26]. A recurring debate is whether these patterns are the consequence of associative learning patterns or reflect an appreciation for causal implications [13]. Evidence for the latter is that domain-specific categorization tin be cued by not-perceptual cues (namely, vignettes that make reference to relevant conceptual features, such as animacy), and that children prove domain-specificity as early every bit eighteen-22 months of age, before they have acquired the associated vocabulary that is argued to be the basis of the stardom, on the associative learning business relationship [26].
1 thought that has been proposed to account for children'southward use of not-obvious features in categorization is psychological essentialism [27] [nine]. On this view, children and adults accept a belief that sure categories are existent (non human constructs), are unchanging (non flexible), have a "deeper" basis (non superficial), and have a subconscious quality (essence) that causes observable features. This hidden quality is oftentimes non even specified or known, but rather is a "placeholder" that is assumed to exist, fifty-fifty if the details are unknown. Essentialism posits that people have an abstract, skeletal set of expectations apropos how categories are structured and function, fifty-fifty earlier the particulars are filled in—a position that is consistent with other views of early on cognition as consisting of broad general expectations [28]. Thus, for example, children's categories are non an try to capture perceptual commonalities, but rather an expectation that any such surface commonalities are a reflection of a deeper footing.
Essentialism entails treating a category every bit consisting of more than its surface features. This includes treating categories as: immutable, possessing abrupt boundaries, possessing innate potential, and fostering rich inductive inferences [9]. Considering children are dependent on expert knowledge to guide them to the appropriate classification (e.m., is a whale a fish or a mammal?), labels are an important source of information to children's categories. As young every bit 13 months of age, children make use of developed-supplied labels to change category boundaries and depict novel inferences. For case, a child learning virtually a beliefs of a typical bird is likely to infer that this property is also true of a perceptually similar bird-like dinosaur (a pterodactyl) but not of a perceptually singular bird (a dodo). Still, once an adult labels these items (the pterodactyl is labeled "dinosaur," and the dodo is labeled "bird"), children are more likely to extend the belongings to the other "bird" (dodo) rather than the "dinosaur" (see Fig. 2). [29] [xxx] [31]. Similarity-based theorists propose that these category-based inferences are due to similarity rather than essentialism. On their view, the label itself makes items from the same category more similar to one some other (i.e., the auditory cues adapt the perceptual similarity relations among the items being considered [11]). In contrast, the theory-based position notes several aspects of the findings that the similarity-based model cannot suit [17].
Preschool children who learn a new fact about the target bird are more than likely to generalize that fact to an atypical bird than to a pterodactyl, indicating that the category label can be more important than outward appearances in children'southward inductive inferences. Source: Gelman & Coley (1990), The importance of knowing a dodo is a bird: Categories and inferences in two-twelvemonth-old children. Reprinted with the permission of the American Psychological Association.
Start, children practice not display a general pattern in which all labels are privileged. Instead, they are sensitive to different kinds of words (e.chiliad., nouns vs. verbs; labels for animals versus artifacts), each linked to a different kind of concept (east.k., categories of objects vs. events), reflecting children's sensitivity to the conceptually motivated use of the labels [17]. 2nd, word-meanings contain a variety of abstract conceptual features, including "intention", "cause", and "animacy", equally well equally sensory and perceptual features [32]. Third, words refer to concepts, they do not merely associate to entities in the surround. A compelling demonstration of this betoken is that by xviii months of age, children who learn a novel word (e.g., "whisk") in reference to a picture immediately and preferentially extend the discussion to the actual object that the picture refers to [33]. If words were mere associations, then a discussion linked to a motion-picture show should extend mostly (or but) to other pictures.
A quaternary and final point is that words larn their meaning not only from their histories of co-occurrence with entities in the world, just besides from the intricate linguistic and social systems of which they are a office [34] [35]. When mapping a significant onto a word, children take into account morphological construction, grammatical context, and a host of social cues, including the speaker's eye-gaze, trustworthiness, and intentionality. Immature children do not automatically map words onto co-occurring objects, and brand use of information such as speaker intent [36]. Further show for this bespeak is that when social reasoning is impaired, as with autism spectrum disorder, children take difficulty correctly mapping a word onto its referent [37] [38].
Role of language in categorization
Equally is evident from several of the examples discussed above, the study of categorization is closely linked to the study of language. More than generally, this indicate is apparent in at least three distinct ways. First, the words that children larn imply a vast set of underlying categories; with every utterance of dog, run, or up, children demonstrate they have formed categories to which these words refer. Children's language, so, can provide u.s. at least partial admission to their categories and in the process shed lite on the mechanisms that underlie category acquisition.
Second, language serves as an important vehicle for transmitting category-relevant data. Although much of the literature focuses on children as solitary learners, inventing or discovering categories on their own [39], we likewise know that categories are deeply informed by social and cultural input [40]. The language provided by parents and knowledgeable others conveys information that extends well across the immediately perceptible world [41] [42] [43]. Third, linguistic communication provides a ways of referring directly to categories in their entirety, as is seen in the utilize of abstruse kind-referring noun phrases, or generics (e.g., Birds in Birds lay eggs). It is very difficult—perhaps impossible—to convey categories as a whole in the absence of language. In this department we talk over two interrelated questions that arise when considering the close link between language and categorization. Get-go, nosotros consider whether and how language may touch the categories children grade. We then focus on generics as both a window on children'south categories and a source of information to children regarding categories.
Effects of language on children's categories
The thought that language might exert a causal influence on categorization has experienced a contempo resurgence, with focus on the Whorfian claim that different languages lead to different modes of thought [44]. Even early on, language influences children's individuation and categorization of objects. Xu and colleagues find that labeling promotes children's ability to recognize objects every bit distinct entities through infinite and time [45]. Farther, well before any linguistic production of their own, infants are more probable to care for a set of identically-labeled objects as similar (e.k., a series of rabbits) in comparison to the same set of objects presented without labels or with a non-linguistic sound, and to display a heightened novelty preference when exposed to an exemplar outside the original category (east.k., a sus scrofa) [46].
Labels as well announced to license inductions across those afforded past visible perceptual features. For instance, infants look objects that receive the aforementioned label to share non-obvious properties (such as a audio produced past an internal office), even if those objects are perceptually dissimilar [31] (run into Fig. three). Further, infants fifty-fifty expect perceptually identical objects to accept different not-obvious functions if they receive contrasting labels [32]. The capacity for language to redirect attention beyond immediately perceptible attributes continues to affect older children's categories also. For example, as noted in the previous department on theory-based models of categorization, providing a common characterization to perceptually dissimilar objects (e.g., a blackbird and a flamingo) invites preschool-aged children to generalize behaviors and traits across these instances [34], and providing a label to an ambiguous exemplar (due east.g., calling a spoon-like fundamental a 'spoon') promotes inferences that are consistent with the labeled category (e.g., using the object to eat) [xxx].
(a) Sample detail set. (b) Frequency with which 13-calendar month-olds perform target activeness (e.g., rattle) as a function of similarity to the target and same or dissimilar label from the target. Source: Graham, Kilbreath, & Welder (2004), 13-month-olds rely on shared labels and shape similarity for inductive inferences. Reprinted with the permission of Wiley-Blackwell.
Thus, beyond development, language allows children to get beyond the perceptual in their categorical reasoning. In this way, labels appear to straight children to assume deeper similarities amongst the named instances and to make inferences that may non be consistent with immediately perceptual attributes. What are the mechanisms that underlie such furnishings? One possibility is that the act of labeling something implies the existence of an inferentially rich category to which that labeled entity belongs. Labels are argued to hold a privileged role in guiding category-based induction, licensing children to seek out deeper, kind-based similarities [9]. This is not to say that language is the simply means of constructing non-perceptual categories, but rather that children tin can be (and oft are) alerted to deeper commonalities by a shared label.
Labeling may also accept profound bear upon on children's judgments within the social world. For example, Gelman and Heyman [47] plant that five- and viii-year-old children were more than probable to attribute stability to someone'southward beliefs if information technology was presented with a substantive label (e.g., Rose is a carrot-eater) as opposed to described in a predicate (east.g., Rose eats carrots whenever she can). Heyman [48] demonstrated that this effect extends into children's judgments of bookish skill as well; when elementary-school-aged children heard a graphic symbol described equally a math whiz, for case, they attributed more stability and innateness to the character's math ability than if they heard that the character did the best on a math test. Relatedly, Cimpian, Arce, Markman, and Dweck [49] investigated how different ways of describing talent affected younger children'southward motivation to persevere in the face of failure. After hearing a fictional scenario in which talent was conveyed with a label (due east.g., You are a skillful drawer) in comparison to a predicate (e.1000., You did a adept job drawing), four-year-old children were less likely to report that they would want to continue on a drawing task after making a mistake. Farther, hearing about power predicated of a broad category equally opposed to an individual has implications for children's motivations, suggesting that labels referring to categories are effective in conveying the thought that talent may be inherent to a category and hence more than central and immutable [fifty]. Taken together, this line of studies suggests that noun labels signal the existence of a well-structured, inferentially rich category (e.g., carrot-eater, math whiz, good drawer), thereby providing stronger license than predicate-based information for attributions of stability and inherence of traits and behaviors. More generally, adults' labeling of social groups conveys that discrete kinds of people exist, with these groups united by internal and stable traits; in this way, children's sensitivity to adults' labeling styles shapes their processing of the social globe [51].
Generic nouns
Equally noted earlier, generic noun phrases (hereafter generics) are linguistic forms that refer to categories rather than item instances [52]. For example, the generic birds in Birds lay eggs tin can be interpreted as 'the kind of matter known as a bird'; in contrast, a detail noun phrase refers to a specific instance or subset of the kind, as in My birds laid eggs. Generics express a unique type of information, indicating that a holding is characteristic of the category only not necessarily universal or even statistically the near prevalent—the argument Birds lay eggs is considered true despite the fact that male and juvenile birds (which together conspicuously constitute the majority of all birds) practise not lay eggs [53].
Generics may be a uniquely effective ways of expressing chiselled cognition consistent with essentialist reasoning. The idea that Birds lay eggs, for example, may advise not but that many birds lay eggs (i.e., that the property takes wide telescopic) but also that there is something inherent or essential to the bird category such that they lay eggs. The very fact that birds as a category receives the generic label thus allows for more anterior generalizations, judgments that go across any related to egg-laying; one might as well expect a range of similar behaviors, properties, and traits to characterize birds as a grouping.
When considering the part of generics in children'south essentialist beliefs about categories, ane initial question is whether children are fifty-fifty sensitive to the means past which generics are expressed linguistically. A growing trunk of bear witness strongly suggests that the answer is yes. Overt surface form differences betwixt generic and particular noun phrases can be quite subtle (east.g., compare "Birds lay eggs" to "The birds lay eggs"), and at that place is no unmarried unambiguous syntactic marking of generics [52]. Nonetheless, children recognize many of the conventional linguistic devices used to express generics and can integrate their syntactic knowledge with considerations of semantic and businesslike cues to go far at adult-like interpretations [54] [55].
There is likewise back up for the office of generics in promoting judgments consistent with essentialist reasoning. Preschool-anile children expect that backdrop predicated of generics are more cardinal to a given substantive category [56], and are more likely to use a property rather than overall similarity as a basis for categorization when told that the property is true of the generic (e.g., Keftas have humps) as opposed to an private (eastward.g., This kefta has humps) [57] (see Fig. 4). Children are likewise more likely to expect a property to accept a more internal or causal ground after hearing the property expressed generically, and this effect holds for both social (e.g., gender) and non-social (eastward.g., creature) categories [58].
Children who hear "kevtas are woolly" are more likely to select the differently-shaped woolly item as a kevta rather than the aforementioned-shaped non-woolly item. Source: Hollander, Gelman, & Raman (2009), Generic language and judgments about category membership: Can generics highlight properties as cardinal? Reprinted with the permission of the American Psychological Association.
Children's apply of generics can reflect essentialism as well. Acquired early and past children in every language studied (even including dwelling sign systems of deaf children), generics appear as a ubiquitous ways of referring to categories. Notably, for both parents and children, generics are more oft used to refer to natural kinds (due east.g., animals) as opposed to artifacts (e.g., machines) [59]. This difference is consistent with by inquiry demonstrating that children look natural kind categories to be more stable and inferentially rich [60] and provides indirect support for the role of generics in essentialist reasoning.
The exact nature of this role, however, is nevertheless unclear. One possibility is that parents' own tendency to apply generics to refer to natural kinds is the sole source of differences in children, with whatsoever distinctions in kind-based reasoning across domains being a consequence of the input children receive. Such an explanation would be consequent with a unidirectional relationship between language and concept; without generics equally a linguistic form, there would be no generic concept. We do not favor such a position, still. Although parents' generics may have the capacity to inform children most category structure, children'southward essentialist reasoning itself is an early-developed grade of thinking [nine].
Categories in context
Categories are significant non merely as representations in their own right, just too for how they link to other cognitive processes. Murphy, p. 1, refers to the representation of categories as "a kind of mental glue," linking current perception to past experience; linking current feel to cognition, theories, and imagination; enabling novel inferences; and mediating the relationship between language and reality [6]. For instance, the category "tree" allows you to relate the tree in your yard to prior trees you have seen, to admission your knowledge well-nigh trees, to generalize facts learned most i tree to other trees, and to interpret the English language discussion "tree" in a meaningful way. Thus, categories have implications for about every attribute of cognition. In this sense, categories can never be considered isolated representations, but are woven into the fabric of idea.
In this section, we consider two ways in which children's categories fit within a broader context. Kickoff, nosotros outline ways in which the goals, context, and content of categories lead to variability and flexibility. Second, we consider how children combine categories into larger knowledge systems.
Sources of variability and flexibility
A powerful theme throughout the developmental categorization literature is that children's categories are highly varied and do not conform to a unmarried, monolithic pattern, at whatever bespeak in evolution. By preschool age (and often earlier), children can categorize based on shape, color, texture, number, gender, facial features, speech, musical tones, movement patterns, broad ontological information (such as animacy), non-obvious information (such as internal parts), and more than [3]. Children'due south categories include highly contextually sensitive groupings as well as broad, context-gratis groupings. They are both abstract and concrete. They reflect subtle statistical cues as well every bit powerful theories. They are linked to language and contained of language. They are highly flexible. In brusque, they display much of the range and flexibility of developed categories [61]. Indeed, this variability partly accounts for the contrasting theoretical positions outlined before, every bit typically the selection of category and task differs, depending on whether one is interested in (for case) the role of causal knowledge or the influence of shape.
One way to think nearly the variation in children'south categories is to consider that categorization entails choice: consciously or not, the categorizer chooses a perspective on the world. Whatsoever item could exist categorized in a countless variety of means, simply at any given moment the child focuses on no more than one or two. At times this choice reflects a categorization goal: Do I strive for a rapid categorization even if information technology includes errors, or do I strive for the most thoughtful and informed categorization even if it slows me downwards? At other times this choice reflects the category domain, context, or task at hand. Some have argued that this variability suggests that concepts do not exist equally stable entities [62]. Others suggest that it is a mistake to pursue a single theory of concepts [63]. Regardless of these broader theoretical implications, for electric current purposes, nosotros note that variability in categorization is clearly systematic.
Some of the factors that influence children's categorization decisions involve the task itself. Being asked to sort objects leads preschool children to use different information than being asked to grade inductive inferences [64]. Framing the task as ane that is teacher-led (pedagogical) leads 5- and six-year-old children to make greater utilize of properties of the sample than when the job is framed every bit learner-driven (non-pedagogical) [65]. Implicit and explicit categorization tasks can lead to diverging results, though this depends somewhat on the historic period of the participant [66]. Further, as detailed before, providing labels also exerts powerful furnishings on preschool children'southward categorization [sixteen].
Other factors concern the nature of the items being classified. Certainly an array of simple geometric shapes volition encourage a focus on perceptual features, whereas an assortment of animals will permit consideration of other features (such equally genetic relatedness, ecology match). More generally, different domains (e.g., animals vs. artifacts) encourage different modes of categorization [26] [59] [67]. Pictures differ from objects in the kinds of categories they encourage, such that parent-kid conversations nearly pictures focus relatively more than on taxonomic categories, whereas parent-child conversations most objects focus relatively more on thematic relations [68]. Children are as well faster at processing functional relations as opposed to perceptual similarity relations for objects that can exist manipulated (e.g., tools), only the reverse holds true for objects that cannot be manipulated (eastward.g., furniture) [69].
Currently the findings of task and item furnishings are scattered, and there is non nevertheless a coherent, integrative model for the factors that lead to different kinds of categorization at unlike points in development. This volition be an important goal for futurity inquiry.
Categories in larger systems
To this point we have focused on categories as atomic entities; how does the kid course a category of "bird", "loving cup", or "whisk"? Even so individual categories can be compared, combined, and assorted, in social club to extend and develop one's knowledge. For adults, categories play an important office as components of larger knowledge systems. Evolutionary theory entails noting and testing hypothesized genetic relationships among categories that might at first appear unrelated (e.g., birds and dinosaurs). Analogical reasoning is the footing of much creative scientific thought, and requires forming new and unexpected comparisons among categories [seventy]. Generalizing new facts oft requires assessing the breadth of categories that instantiate that new fact (e.yard., what is the likelihood that ane's pet will contract a certain disease, given that both humans and squirrels do so?). These examples illustrate that much of the of import work of categories is carried out in the context of larger systems in which they participate.
At that place is an all-encompassing literature on how children combine categories to note taxonomic relations (e.g., birds and crocodiles are both animals), thematic relations (east.1000., birds live in nests), and slot-filler relations (e.grand., oatmeal and bacon are both breakfast foods) [71]. Although information technology was once believed that dissimilar relations were feature of distinct developmental stages [72], it is now recognized that category relations are highly flexible from as early every bit preschool historic period. Children and adults alike can classify based on taxonomic or thematic links, depending on the properties of the task and item [16] [73] [74].
Children are also capable of comparing and contrasting categories, from preschool age. For example, as noted earlier, categories are elements in naïve theories, and a category such as "daughter" differs importantly from a category such every bit "stone" in that just the former is part of a theory of intentional activity [75] [76] [77]. However, the manner in which children combine categories changes with development. Theory change in childhood provides a potent example, for as children's theories change, the component categories are forced to change also. Thus, for example, nomenclature of what is "alive" is influenced by changing theories of biology—also every bit cultural and linguistic factors [78] [79].
Data gleaned from multiple categories likewise guides children's inductive inferences [eighty]. For example, viii-twelvemonth-old children are more than likely to infer that all animals possess a belongings that they learn is truthful of goats and sheep than to infer that all animals possess a property that they learn is true of sheep [81]. Even so, this capacity, as well, undergoes marked developmental change. Adults draw more than extensive inferences regarding properties they learn to exist truthful of a diverse sample of categories than regarding properties they learn to be true of a homogeneous sample of categories (e.one thousand., a property learned about a horse and a rabbit generalizes farther than a property learned nearly a horse and a zebra; [82]). In contrast, children below middle childhood don't yet capeesh the importance of sample diversity, and instead rely on characteristics of private instances, such every bit their typicality (e.k., cartoon more inferences from sparrows to other birds than from owls to other birds; [fourscore]). Interestingly, even much younger children can make employ of category sampling information in sure kinds of learning contexts, though not when asked to evaluate competing sources of evidence [83].
Categories are as well fruitfully combined to generate comparisons, which allow extraction of more than abstract backdrop than when considering merely a single category. Thus, for example, when given private pictures, children prefer to sort based on perceptual similarity (e.chiliad., grouping an apple with a airship rather than a banana), yet when provided with exemplars from 2 categories (apple and pear), thus permitting featural comparing, children now classify based on taxonomic relatedness (group the apple and pear with a banana more than often than with a airship) [84]. A similar effect can be found when children are asked to compare two categories every bit compared to 2 individual instances (e.g., "Can you tell me some things that are the aforementioned about dogs and cats?" vs. "Can y'all tell me some things that are the same about this dog and this true cat?") [85]. Children are more than apt to focus on superficial or spurious features when comparing individuals ("They are both brownish"), and to focus on less obvious features when comparing categories ("They are both animals").
Although more research is needed to examine the developmental roots and consequences of these abilities, children's capacity to combine and compare categories illustrates that from an early age, categories play a role in all aspects of homo noesis [half dozen].
Conclusion
Categorization is a component of a vast range of cognitive processes. As such, the study of categorization in children is linked to the study of cognitive evolution more than broadly. In this review, we have highlighted the importance of domain-specific knowledge structures for categorization, the part of language in children's concepts, and the complication, variability, and broader bear upon of categories for intelligent thought. Some exciting directions for the futurity include mapping out children's categories in particular domains (e.g., social cognition), determining the mechanisms that underlie category learning at different points in evolution, studying how sensitivity to cues in the input interact with children's causal understanding and naïve theories, and determining how language interacts with these processes.
Acknowledgments
Training of this article was supported by NICHD grant R01 HD36043 to Gelman.
Contributor Information
Susan A. Gelman, Electronic mail: ude.hcimu@namleg Academy of Michigan.
Meredith Meyer, Email: ude.hcimu@reyemrem Academy of Michigan.
References
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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3579639/
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