The future of infant categorization research: a process-oriented approach.

We call for a shift from a content-oriented approach to a process-oriented approach to the study of categorization in infancy. Although gains have been made in our understanding of infant categorization by evaluating the categories to which infants respond, further understanding of infant categorization, and how categorization changes with development, requires that we more directly assess infants' category formation. We argue that two directions for future research will continue to enhance our understanding of categorization in infancy (and beyond). First, contextual variations (e.g., the effects of task, stimuli, and other factors) on infants' categorization must be better understood. Second, we must more directly evaluate the kinds of information infants use when forming categories, as well as how their use of such information changes with age, task, and so forth. We argue that these two foci will provide clearer understanding of the origins and early development of categorization.

[1]  Douglas L. Medin,et al.  What's So Essential About Essentialism? A Different Perspective on the Interaction of Perception, Language, and Conceptual Knowledge , 1993 .

[2]  M. Strauss,et al.  Abstraction of prototypical information by adults and 10-month-old infants. , 1979, Journal of experimental psychology. Human learning and memory.

[3]  P. D. Eimas,et al.  Studies on the formation of perceptually based basic-level categories in young infants. , 1994, Child development.

[4]  P. Quinn,et al.  A Reexamination of the Perceptual-to-Conceptual Shift in Mental Representations , 1997 .

[5]  Leslie B. Cohen,et al.  The Role of Object Parts in Infants' Attention to Form-Function Correlations. , 1995 .

[6]  J. Mandler,et al.  Drinking and driving don't mix: inductive generalization in infancy , 1996, Cognition.

[7]  P. Quinn,et al.  Categorization in infancy , 2001, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[8]  Lisa M. Oakes,et al.  Making Sense of Infant Categorization: Stable Processes and Changing Representations☆☆☆ , 1999 .

[9]  J. Mandler,et al.  Concept formation in infancy , 1993 .

[10]  J. Mandler,et al.  Separating the sheep from the goats: Differentiating global categories , 1991, Cognitive Psychology.

[11]  Jodie M. Plumert,et al.  Evidence for Task-Dependent Categorization in Infancy , 1996 .

[12]  J. Mandler.  How to build a baby: On the development of an accessible representational system☆ , 1988 .

[13]  P. D. Eimas,et al.  Evidence for Representations of Perceptually Similar Natural Categories by 3-Month-Old and 4-Month-Old Infants , 1993, Perception.

[14]  B. Younger.  The segregation of items into categories by ten-month-old infants. , 1985, Child development.

[15]  J. Mandler,et al.  On developing a knowledge base in infancy. , 1998, Developmental psychology.

[16]  J. Reznick,et al.  The Development of Contextual Categories , 1987 .

[17]  K. Roberts,et al.  Categorization studies of 9- to 15-month-old infants: Evidence for superordinate categorization? , 1989 .

[18]  J. Mandler.  How to build a baby: II. Conceptual primitives. , 1992, Psychological review.

[19]  Peter D. Eimas,et al.  Categorization in early infancy and the continuity of development , 1994, Cognition.

[20]  M. Posner,et al.  On the genesis of abstract ideas. , 1968, Journal of experimental psychology.

[21]  L. Oakes,et al.  By land or by sea: the role of perceptual similarity in infants' categorization of animals. , 1997, Developmental psychology.

[22]  Linda B. Smith,et al.  The place of perception in children's concepts ☆ , 1993 .

[23]  Linda B. Smith,et al.  A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action , 2007, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[24]  B. Fagot,et al.  Categorical habituation to male and female faces: Gender schematic processing in infancy** , 1993 .

[25]  E. Bushnell,et al.  Motor development and the mind: the potential role of motor abilities as a determinant of aspects of perceptual development. , 1993, Child development.

[26]  J. Colombo,et al.  Form categorization in 10-month-olds. , 1990, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[27]  Andrew N Meltzoff,et al.  Deferred Imitation Across Changes in Context and Object: Memory and Generalization in 14-Month-Old Infants. , 1996, Infant behavior & development.

[28]  S. Sugarman,et al.  Developmental change in early representational intelligence: Evidence from spatial classification strategies and related verbal expressions , 1982, Cognitive Psychology.