Categorical perception (CP) refers to the influence of category knowledge on perception and is revealed by a superior ability to discriminate items across categories relative to items within a category. In recent years, the finding that CP is lateralized to the left hemisphere in adults has been interpreted as evidence for a kind of CP driven by…

Most works in cognitive semantics have been focusing on the manner, in which an individual behaves--be it the mind, brain, or even computers, which process various kinds of information. Among humans, in particular, social life is richly cultured. Sociality and culture are made possible by cognitive studies; they provide specific inputs to…

Since Selinker's (1972) historic invocation of language learning strategies (LLS) and communication strategies (CS) as two distinct processes involved in the development of interlanguage, it has become customary in SLA literature to distinguish the strategies of learning from the strategies of communication. It has been argued in this article that…

Meyer found subjects were faster to determine if a stimulus word was a member of either of two prespecified categories if the categories were close in meaning. A reanalysis of the data favors instead a model emphasizing the role of decision-making processes in categorization and flexibility of task strategies. (CHK)

Results show that basic objects are shown to be the most inclusive categories for which a concrete image of the category as a whole can be formed, to be the first categorizations made during perception of the environment and to be the categories most codable, most coded, and most necessary in language. (Author/DEP)

Expanded version of a talk presented at the meeting of the Eastern Verbal Investigators League, Brandeis University, May 1, 1971. (VM)

Two types of operating principles thought to play an important role in early lexical development are discussed. The principles are those concerned with: (1) assignment of reference or meaning to words; and (2) formation and evolution of categories. Discussion also addresses related issues, such as the developmentally important relationship between…

Recent studies of folk biology clearly reveal the detailed empirical knowledge of living things which is an important and characteristic element of pre-scientific cultures. This paper attempts a contribution to the study of such systems of knowledge by analyzing the comparable skills of a few American birdwatchers. The process of identification of…

The categorizations which humans make of the concrete world are not arbitrary but highly determined. In taxonomies of concrete objects, there is one level of abstraction at which the most basic category cuts are made. Basic categories are those which carry the most information, possess the highest category cue validity, and are, thus, the most…

Suggests some reasons why the exploration and description of language function is often an untidy exercise but, none-the-less very rewarding and rich in implication for English teaching. (Author/RK)

Relational-inference, a process associated with developmental change in performance on classification items, was investigated in two experiments. The accuracy and latency with which 20 subjects at each of 3 age levels (8, 11, and adult) stated relationships among concepts were tested. In experiment 1, 40 triplets of concepts related by a class…

Research supported in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. (DS)

A REPORT OF A CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN SPEECH AND HEARING FOR MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN IS PRESENTED. THE MAIN AREAS INCLUDED ARE THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION, PROCEDURES FOR MEASURING LANGUAGE, AND SPECIAL METHODS FOR TREATMENT. SPECIFIC REPORTS GIVEN ARE--"PSYCHOLINGUISTICS IN THE STUDY OF MENTAL RETARDATION"…

A study investigated how young children understand natural kind terms by examining how 3- and 4-year-olds rely on category membership to draw inductive inferences about objects. One hundred four children (53 girls and 51 boys) from six preschools in California and Michigan participated in the study. The children were shown 10 sets of pictures of…