Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:53:43.905Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the semantics of infant categorization and why infants perceive horses as humans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2008

Paul C. Quinn
Paul C. Quinn
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716. [email protected]://w3.psych.udel.edu/people/faculty/quinn.asp
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This commentary considers the issues of what should be taken as evidence for semantic categorization in infants and why infants display a surprising asymmetry in the categorization of humans versus nonhuman animals. It is argued that perceptual knowledge should be viewed as a potent source of information for semantic categorization, and that the asymmetrical categorization behavior arises as a consequence of the frequency and similarity structure of experience.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 6 , December 2008 , pp. 724 - 726
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Carey, S. (1985) Conceptual change in childhood. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Carey, S. (2000) The origin of concepts. Journal of Cognition and Development 1:37–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gauthier, I. & Tarr, M. J. (2002) Unraveling mechanisms for expert object recognition: Bridging brain activity and behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 28:431–46.Google ScholarPubMed
Gelman, S. A. (2003) The essential child: Origins of essentialism in everyday thought. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hampton, J. A., Estes, Z. & Simmons, S. (2007) Metamorphosis: Essence, appearance, and behavior in the categorization of natural kinds. Memory and Cognition 35:1785–1800.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keil, F. C. (1989) Concepts, kinds, and cognitive development. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mandler, J. M. (2000) Perceptual and conceptual processes in infancy. Journal of Cognition and Development 1:3–36.Google Scholar
Mandler, J. M. & McDonough, L. (1993) Concept formation in infancy. Cognitive Development 8:291–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mermillod, M., French, R. M., Quinn, P. C. & Mareschal, D. (2004) The importance of long-term memory in infant perceptual categorization. In: Proceedings of the 25th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. Alterman, R. & Kirsh, D., pp. 804–809. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Murphy, G. L. (2002) The big book of concepts. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, G. L. & Wright, J. C. (1984) Changes in conceptual structure with expertise: Differences between real-world experts and novices. Journal of Experimental Psychology/Learning, Memory, and Cognition 10:144–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauen, S. (2002a) Evidence for knowledge-based category discrimination in infancy. Child Development 73(4):1016–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quinn, P. C. (2004a) Is the asymmetry in young infants' categorization of humans versus nonhuman animals based on head, body, or global Gestalt Information? Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 11:92–97.Google Scholar
Quinn, P. C. (2004b) Multiple sources of information and their integration, not dissociation, as an organizing framework for understanding infant concept formation. Developmental Science 7:511–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, P. C. (2005) Young infants' categorization of humans versus nonhuman animals: Roles for knowledge access and perceptual process. In: Building object categories in developmental time: 32nd Carnegie Symposium on cognition, vol. 32, ed. Gershkoff-Stowe, L. & Rakison, D., pp. 107–30. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Quinn, P. C. & Eimas, P. D. (1998) Evidence for a global categorical representation of humans by young infants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 69:151–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quinn, P. C., Lee, K., Pascalis, O. & Slater, A. M. (2007) In support of an expert-novice difference in the representation of humans versus non-human animals by infants: Generalization from persons to cats occurs only with upright whole images. Cognition, Brain, and Behavior (Special Issue on the Development of Categorization) 11:679–94.Google Scholar
Rogers, T. T. & McClelland, J. L. (2004) Semantic cognition: A parallel distributed processing approach. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, L. B. & Heise, D. (1992) Perceptual similarity and conceptual structure. In: Percepts, concepts, and categories, ed. Burns, B., pp. 233–72. North Holland.Google Scholar
Tanaka, J. W. (2001) The entry point of face recognition: Evidence for face expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 130:534–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed