CONCEPT FORMATION

The way in which an infant adjusts the range of senses attached to a word until it resembles the range of an adult.

An infant’s early nouns are used in two ways: context-bound, applied to a single referent, and context-free, applied to a class of items. Strikingly, most words are generalised to more than one referent within about a month of acquisition. Once acquired, words appear to be categorised into lexical sets: this is seen in occasional substitutions, such as the word SPOON being used for a fork. From early on, an infant seems to recognise three types of conceptual category: concrete objects, actions and relationships. In initially mapping a word form on to a meaning, it appears to adopt without question a number of assumptions, which may reflect innate tendencies. These constraints include:

the whole object assumption: that the term DOG refers to a whole animal rather than the tail or the teeth;

the taxonomic assumption: that labels refer to categories of objects rather than to the temporary co-occurrence of two features (i.e. a dog under a tree or a dog lying down); .

the mutual exclusivity assumption: that there is only one label per category of objects;

the type assumption: that a word refers to a class of objects or events rather than a single one (DOG does not just refer to the family pet).

To these, Clark (1993) adds the principles of conventionality (the assumption that there is a standard adult form to which a sense is attached) and contrast (the fact that every difference in form marks a difference in meaning). In addition, there is an assumption shared between infant and caretaker that the first words provided are basic level terms (thus, DOG will be introduced before ANIMAL or POODLE). Basic level terms are those which are most clearly distinguishable in terms of their characterising features. The important consideration for the infant is that, in acquiring such terms, it is applying roughly the same level of detail in establishing each of its early concepts. It appears initially to apply a no-overlap assumption which leads it occasionally to reject formulations involving higher-level terms such as A dog is an animal. In time, it comes to accord priority to the words acquired first: it assumes that the term DOGrefers to a basic class of objects in a way that the later-acquired ANIMAL and POODLE do not.

 It appears that the formation of early noun categories is very much guided by the shape of the objects (the shape bias); but that other characteristics (including how human beings relate to the objects) play a part. The functional core hypothesis emphasises the role played by interaction with an object (a brush acquires brushness through being used).

 An infant’s early conceptual categories are markedly different from those of an adult, since they lack the complete set of characterising features. The infant may make wrong assumptions about what it is that qualifies an object or action for inclusion. Infants over-extend adult categories in some ways (for example, classifying an ostrich as a duck) but under-extend them in others (denying that Donald Duck is a duck).

 Over-extensions of concepts take three main forms: categorical where two categories are combined (DADA = both parents), analogous where a single defining characteristic is adopted (BALL = all round objects; COMB = centipede) and predicative where an object is related to an action (DOOR = to open, COOKIE = plate). In some cases, these over-extensions simply reflect gaps in the infant’s vocabulary.

 Vygotsky gives an example of a chain complex (or associative complex) which illustrates how a child might over-extend a category by a process of loose association. The child acquired QUAH (= quack) for a duck on a pond, then extended it to a cup of milk (liquid like the pond), to a coin with an eagle on it (a bird like the duck) and to a teddy bear’s eye (round like the coin).

Over a period of time, the infant gradually reshapes its conceptual categories to correspond to those of adults. One of the longer-term developments is a move from reliance upon perceptual and functional characteristics (UNCLE as a giver of presents) to defining ones (UNCLE as sibling of parent).

One approach to concept formation has proposed that infants establish a central reference point for a word in the form of a prototype; this is based either upon the first exemplar of a word which they meet or upon the referent most frequently used by adults. The infant then extends the word to other entities which appear to share a ‘goodness of fit’ with the prototype. An alternative account is provided by a multiple-trace model, which assumes that each encounter with an exemplar of a conceptual category leaves a memory trace. The overlapping experiences (of, say, a variety of types of dog) gradually enable the infant to recognise features which are common to all of them and thus to form criteria for allocating further exemplars to the category.

See also: Basic level, Mapping, Prototype Theory, Vocabulary acquisition

Further reading: Bowerman and Levinson (2001); Clark (1993); Golinkoff et al. (1999); Neisser (1987); Owens (2001)

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

المجمع العلمي للقرآن الكريم يصدر الكتاب الثاني من سلسلة يخشى

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مواضيع ذات صلة

Problems with the dictionary view

The dictionary view

Dictionaries versus encyclopaedias

The encyclopaedic view of meaning

Embodiment and conceptual structure summary

Schematic systems

Semantic structure

Conceptual structure

Image schemas and abstract thought

Properties of image schemas

What is an image schema?

Image schemas