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1 results

  • 14 - Infant Categorization

  • from Part III - Cognitive Development
  • Edited by Jeffrey J. Lockman, Tulane University, Louisiana, Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, New York University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Infant Development
    Published online:
    26 September 2020
    Print publication:
    13 August 2020, pp 381-409

  • Summary

    This chapter is about categorization in infancy. In general, categories refer to groups of objects in the world, and concepts refers to our mental representations of those categories. Whereas categories can refer to groups of objects based on any kind of similarity (e.g., shape, such as round things, function, such as things you throw), concepts often are thought to include information that goes beyond the perceptual, for example understanding that dogs and birds are both living things, and that airplanes and birds are different things despite similarity in shape and function. Categories and concepts have been described as “the glue that holds our mental world together” (Murphy, 2002, p. 1) and that without them “mental life would be chaotic” (E. E. Smith & Medin, 1981, p. 1). Therefore, categories, and the processes we use to form them, are central to cognition.