CPSY 4343 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Dual Representation, Essentialism, Animism
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Conceptual development: episodic (events) vs. semantic (general knowledge) memory. Chi and koeske (1963) argue that children to poor on memory tasks because of their relatively small knowledge base. Familiar objects require less cognitive effort to encode, retrieve relevant information about, notice novel features of, etc. Concepts: ideas in the knowledge base, such as facts, word meanings, a(cid:374)d (cid:862)(cid:272)o(cid:373)(cid:373)o(cid:374)se(cid:374)se(cid:863) k(cid:374)o(cid:449)ledge, properties, a(cid:271)stra(cid:272)t ideas. Categorization: the process in which a stimulus is recognized or assigned to a concept. Concepts organized early on into a hierarchy. Subordinate level: labrador retriever, persian cat, armchair, dining room table. Basic level: dog, cat, chair, table (learned first) Study found 4-year-olds based their inferences on category membership rather than physical appearance 68% of the time. 2nd graders more sensitive to natural-kind/artifact distinction than preschoolers. Ontology: a conception of the basic categories of existence. Essentialist beliefs: the idea that all members of a species have an inner (cid:374)ature or (cid:858)esse(cid:374)(cid:272)e(cid:859) that deter(cid:373)i(cid:374)es the orga(cid:374)is(cid:373)s(cid:859)(cid:859) out(cid:449)ard appeara(cid:374)(cid:272)e and behavior.
