The emergence of abstract ideas: evidence from networks and babies.

Full Abstract

What is abstraction? In our view, abstraction is generalization. Specifically, we propose that abstract concepts emerge as the natural product of associative learning and generalization by similarity. We support this proposal by presenting evidence for two ideas:
first, that children's knowledge about how categories are organized and how words refer to them can be explained as learned generalizations over specific experiences of words referring to categories; and second, that the path of concepts from concrete to more abstract can be observed throughout development and that even in their more abstract form, concepts retain some of their original sensory basis. We illustrate these two facts by examining, in two kinds of learners--networks and young children--the development of three abstract ideas:
(i) the idea of word; (ii) the idea of object; and (iii) the idea of substance.

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Author information

Author/s: Colunga, Eliana (E); Smith, Linda B (LB);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Indiana, 1101 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-7007, USA. ecolunga(-atsign-)cs.indiana.edu

Grants: R01 MH 60200 (Agency:United States NIMH)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences (Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Jul; vol 358 (issue 1435) : pp 1205-14

Dates: Created 2003/08/06; Completed 2003/09/23; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 12903655, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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