Ostensive definitions of words are ambiguities as to their referent. In a study of infant-mother dyads engaged in looking at picture books, 95 percent of ostensive definitions referred to the whole object depicted rather than parts, attributes, or actions. When parts were named, ambiguity was avoided by naming the part and the whole. (PJM)

Describes a study designed to compare color-name with shape-name learning by three-year-old children in an experimentally controlled format. Results show that children learned color-label associates significantly more slowly than matched shape-label associates, and they committed more errors with colors than with shapes during learning. Provides a…

Pronoun mastery demands a knowledge of speech roles and an ability to identify oneself and others in those roles. Twenty-one girls' knowledge of "my,""your," and "her" was assessed when they were speakers, addressees, and nonaddressed listeners. The children were aware of speech roles only when they themselves occupied these roles. (PJM)

Studies the perceptual relationship between temporal "before" and "after" and their spatial counterparts. Adults reported temporal "before" related to spatial "after" and temporal "after" related to spatial "before." Three-year old children better understood spatial "after" and spatial "before," suggesting a temporal/spatial semantic acquisition…

Responds to four commentaries on the article by Jones and Smith in this issue. Suggests that the comments derive from the possibility that stable concepts might not exist and from the difficulty of imagining what cognition could be without represented concepts. Discusses traditional approaches to stability and variability, and considers what…

Research findings concerned with the relationship between the child's oral language behavior and learning to read are described. A cognitive-biological approach to the child's perceptual system development is taken, and data are presented to support both the developmental point of view of language development and the point of view that the child…

Reviews current research on children's concepts and categories that reflects a growing consensus that nonperceptual knowledge is central to concepts and determines category membership, whereas perceptual knowledge is peripheral in concepts and only a rough guide to category membership. Argues that there is no compelling basis in theory or in data…

Comments on the article by Jones and Smith in this issue. Responds to the theses that perceptual information is as much at the core of concepts as is nonperceptual information and that concepts are not represented as such but are computed on-line when needed. Presents a view of the relationship between perception and conceptual knowledge…

Comments on the article by Jones and Smith in this issue. Describes a program of research that demonstrates the important influence of perception on the structure of concepts. Proposes that both perceptual and nonperceptual information are important to conceptual structure throughout the continuum of knowledge acquisition and that perception is a…

Comments on the article by Jones and Smith in this issue. Outlines different perspectives from which the issue of conceptual development is approached, elaborating on the functions concepts serve and variations in those functions. Notes points of agreement with the perceptual knowledge view and offers comments on the research supporting the…

A decline exists in children's ability at ages 4 and 5 to accurately respond to the difference between polar adjectives such as "big" and "tall.""Taller" and "bigger" are both taken to mean "having a higher top point," rather than "bigger" meaning "greater overall mass." Two hypotheses are put forth to explain this. The "strong cognitive…

This commentary on the article by Jones and Smith in this issue examines whether coherent conceptual cores exist in long-term memory; abstract propositions constitute conceptual cores; concepts in long-term memory control behavior; and the primary purpose of developing and using concepts is to taxonomize the environment. (TJQ)

Past research on the development of referential communication abilities in children does not provide a basis for explaining precisely why communicative effectiveness increases. The common assumption is that developments in role-taking facilitate the child's ability to adapt to hearers. A reasonable alternative explanation is that a child's…

In the first part of the paper the idea of the cognitive network is developed. The network consists of concepts linked together by relationships which are themselves concepts. Concepts are learned according to simple rules, and the network grows as new concepts are learned. Part II considers the growth and structure of language. The growth of…

The idea of semantic features has taken some force within psychology and a number of research workers have suggested that semantic acquisition is, in some manner, determined by semantic components. This notion has come to be called the "semantic feature hypothesis". An examination of the semantic feature hypothesis was made by testing 80…