Yeah, that whole question of how people sort things into categories is a fascinating cognitive psych question. It's even more extreme when you think of fuzzier categories (okay, okay, some dogs are very fuzzy, but bear with me) like "chair." What characteristics do all chairs have in common? They don't all have legs - plenty of armchairs have a solid base. You can't sit on all of them - a dollhouse-sized chair is still a chair. They don't even all have a seat - think of a beanbag chair. And yet somehow we recognize that all members of the category are chairs.
It turns out that instead of having a mental checklist of required features, for most common objects we mentally compare them to a prototype. The closer something is to your prototype object, the quicker and more certain you are about labeling it as $object. So if your prototype dog is a Labrador, you might take miliseconds longer to agree that, say, a chihuahua is a dog. Or a Mexican hairless. Or a pulli.
Tiny kids don't have their prototypes very well refined yet. In a year or so, Alex is likely to refer to all medium-sized animals as "doggy." But you're right, they do learn - and quicker than it makes any sense that they should.
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Date: 2006-02-15 12:00 am (UTC)It turns out that instead of having a mental checklist of required features, for most common objects we mentally compare them to a prototype. The closer something is to your prototype object, the quicker and more certain you are about labeling it as $object. So if your prototype dog is a Labrador, you might take miliseconds longer to agree that, say, a chihuahua is a dog. Or a Mexican hairless. Or a pulli.
Tiny kids don't have their prototypes very well refined yet. In a year or so, Alex is likely to refer to all medium-sized animals as "doggy." But you're right, they do learn - and quicker than it makes any sense that they should.