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2 ideas
15682 | Even fairly simple animals make judgements based on categories [Gelman] |
Full Idea: All organisms form categories: even mealworms have category-based preferences, and higher-order animals such as pigeons or octopi can display quite sophisticated categorical judgements. | |
From: Susan A. Gelman (The Essential Child [2003], 01 'Prelims') | |
A reaction: [She cites some 1980 research to support this] This comes as no surprise, as I take categorisation as almost definitive of what a mind is. My surmise is that some sort of 'labelling' system is at the heart of it (like Googlemail labels!). |
15691 | Children accept real stable categories, with nonobvious potential that gives causal explanations [Gelman] |
Full Idea: By five children assume that a variety of categories have rich inductive potential, are stable over outward transformations, include crucial nonobvious properties, have innate potential, privilege causal features, can be explained causally, and are real. | |
From: Susan A. Gelman (The Essential Child [2003], 06 'Intro') | |
A reaction: This is Gelman's helpful summary of the findings of research on childhood essentialising, and says the case for this phenomenon is 'compelling'. |