PSYC 251 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Etawah Safari Park, Heredity, Object Permanence
12 Apr 2015
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Conceptual development: concepts: general ideas or understandings that can be used to group together objects, events, qualitites or abstractions that are similar in some way. Dividing objects into categories: children quickly divide the objects they encounter into 3 categories: inanimate objects, people and other animals, forming general categories allows children to draw accurate inferences about unfamiliar entities. Theory of biology (other living things: the 3 informal theories are rudimentary, but share 3 important characteristics with formal scientific theories. Identify fundamental units for dividing all objects and events into a few basic categories. Explain phenomena in terms of a few fundamental principles. Categorization of objects in infancy: when showing infants pics of cats, they habituated early on, but when shown pics of lions, dogs, and other animals they did not habituate. Since they learn the most basic level first, they form categories of medium generality before they form more general or more specific ones.
