Conceptual influences on category-based induction

Abstract

One important function of categories is to permit rich inductive inferences. Prior work shows that children use category labels to guide their inductive inferences. However, there are competing theories to explain this phenomenon, differing in the roles attributed to conceptual information versus perceptual similarity. Seven experiments with 4- to 5-year-old children and adults (N = 344) test these theories by teaching categories for which category membership and perceptual similarity are in conflict, and varying the conceptual basis of the novel categories. Results indicate that for non-natural kind categories that have little conceptual coherence, children make inferences based on perceptual similarity, whereas adults make inferences based on category membership. In contrast, for basic- and ontological-level categories that have a principled conceptual basis, children and adults alike make use of category membership more than perceptual similarity as the basis of their inferences. These findings provide evidence in favor of the role of conceptual information in preschoolers’ inferences, and further demonstrate that labeled categories are not all equivalent; they differ in their inductive potential.

Explaining prompts children to privilege inductively rich properties

“…Nonetheless, young children tend to spontaneously focus on highly salient surface features. Specifically, while older children and adults often group objects according to complex cues such as common internal properties, labels, and causal affordances, regardless of perceptual similarity (Carey, 1985;Keil, 1989;Medin, 1989;Rips, 1989), young children tend to group objects based on perceptual similarity, and only later shift to favoring other properties (e.g., Gelman & Davidson, 2013;Gentner, 2010;Keil & Batterman, 1984).…”

Development of inductive generalization with familiar categories

“…It should be noted that debates about the mechanisms of inductive generalization often are framed in terms of perception versus knowledge (Booth & Waxman, 2002;Gelman & Davidson, 2013;Gelman & Markman, 1986;Sloutsky & Fisher, 2004;Sloutsky, Kloos, & Fisher, 2007). However, the juxtaposition of perception and knowledge is a false dichotomy (for similar arguments see Smith, Jones, Yoshida, & Colunga, 2003).…”

How language shapes the cultural inheritance of categories

“…Although category membership can be inferred without language (e.g., recognizing an animal as a snake based on its shape and movement), labels have informational capacity beyond direct observation. Even for young children, they can convey surprising category membership of an individual item (e.g., that a legless lizard is not a snake) (31) or introduce wholly new categorical distinctions (e.g., to distinguish animals based on subtle variations in antennae rather than overall body shape) (32).…”