Conceptual Development Flashcards
What is a concept?
General ideas that organize objects, events, qualities, or relations on the basis of some similarity
–Allow us to generalize from prior experience
-Help us make sense of the world
What are the two broad categories of fundamental concepts?
- One group is used to categorize the kinds of things that exist in the world
•People, living things (in general), and inanimate objects
–Who or what?
2.The other group is used to represent our experiences
•Space (where the experience occurred), time (when it occurred), causality (why it occurred), and number (how many times it occurred
Are infants able to categorize objects?
Data indicate that even young infants form categories of objects
–Typically examined using a habituation-dishabituation procedure
•Habituate infants to different exemplars (examples) of objects from one category (e.g., cats)
•Present a new exemplar of the old category with an object from a new category (e.g., dogs)
-If infants look longer at the object in the new category (e.g., dog), suggests that they see this object as a member of a different category
-Three- and 4-month-old infants distinguish cats from (some) other animals (dogs, lions, etc.) (Quinn & Eimas, 1996)
•Six-month-old infants can form broader categories
•Distinguish between different mammals (e.g., dogs, zebras, elephants, etc.) and birds or fish (non-mammals) (Behl-Chadha, 1996
How do infants categorize objects?
–Evidence suggests that infants use perceptual categorization
•Perceptual categorization: The grouping together of objects that have similar appearances
–Infants categorize objects along different perceptual dimensions »Exs: color, size, shape, and movement
–Often their categorization is based on specific parts of an object rather than on the object as a whole »Ex: legs, wheels (Categorization of animals and vehicles in infancy is based on legs or wheels. Animals with wheels are grouped with vehicles through sequential touching and vehicles with legs are grouped with animals in a sequential touching procedure)
–As children approach 2 years of age, they are more likely to categorize objects on the basis of overall shape than on other perceptual features
»Ex: If toddlers are shown an unfamiliar object and told that it is a “dax”, they assume that other objects of the same shape are also “daxes” (even when the objects differ from each other in size, texture, and color
What is the sequential touching procedure?
you put a bunch of objects (from different categories) in front of a child and watch them. Look at the order in which they touch the objects (sequence). If they touch items from the same category sequentially then it is considered evidence that they have got that category. ex- touching all the cats in the grouping
Describe categorization of objects beyond infancy.
Objects in the same category often cannot be identified by simple perceptual features
–Exs: whales look more like fish than like many other mammals, but they are mammals, not fish
•Members of a category share many features, only some of which are perceptually “obvious” –Ex: giraffes share a particular diet, life expectancy, gestation period, DNA structure, etc., in addition to sharing easily observable features (e.g., long necks, spots, etc
-Adults assume that members of a category share both observable and unobservable characteristics
–What about young children? The categorize based on observable characteristics
What is category hierarchy?
Categories that are related by set-subset relations
-develop during preschool years
What are the three main categories of category hierarchy?
–Superordinate level: Most general (e.g., plant)
–Subordinate level: Most specific (e.g., oak)
–Basic level: “Medium” level (e.g., tree) •Children typically learn basic categories before learning superordinate or subordinate categories
