Core Knowledge or language-augmented cognition? The case of geometric reasoning

Word count: 16,244 words FINDING CATEGORIES THROUGH WORDS 2 Abstract What are the cognitive consequences of having a name for something? Having a word for a feature makes it easier to communicate about a set of exemplars belonging to the same category (e.g., "the red things") -might it make it easier to learn the category itself? Here, we provide evidence that the ease of learning category distinctions based on simple visual features is predicted from the ease of naming those features. Across seven experiments, participants learned categories composed of colors or shapes that were either easy or more difficult to name in English. Holding the category structure constant, when the underlying features of the category were easy to name, participants were faster and more accurate in learning the novel category. These results suggest that compact verbal labels may facilitate hypothesis formation during learning: it is easier to pose the hypothesis "it is about redness" than "it is about that pinkish-purplish color". Our results have consequences for understanding how developmental and cross-linguistic differences in a language's vocabulary affect category learning and conceptual development.Word count: 173

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding categories through words: More nameable features improve category learning

Zettersten

Lupyan

2020

Cognition

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“…First, it is possible that the verbal interference method we used is simply too weak. We used this procedure because it was effective at influencing performance on a visual reasoning task (Lupyan, Wendorf, Rojas-Berscia, & Paul, 2018), but the task was substantially more difficult than the category learning task tested here, and thus the verbal manipulation (counting to three out loud, a highly practiced, repetitive task) may not have been demanding enough to affect participants during the category learning task. The most striking finding from the current results is that the interference manipulation did not lead to a decrement in performance in either condition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding categories through words: More nameable features improve category learning

Zettersten¹,

Lupyan²

2018

Preprint

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What are the cognitive consequences of having a name for something? Having a word for a feature makes it easier to communicate about a set of exemplars belonging to the same category (e.g., “the red things”) - might it make it easier to learn the category itself? Here, we provide evidence that the ease of learning category distinctions based on simple visual features is predicted from the ease of naming those features. Across seven experiments, participants learned categories composed of colors or shapes that were either easy or more difficult to name in English. Holding the category structure constant, when the underlying features of the category were easy to name, participants were faster and more accurate in learning the novel category. These results suggest that compact verbal labels may facilitate hypothesis formation during learning: it is easier to pose the hypothesis “it is about redness” than “it is about that pinkish-purplish color”. Our results have consequences for understanding how developmental and cross-linguistic differences in a language’s vocabulary affect category learning and conceptual development.

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Does Vocabulary Help Structure the Mind?

Lupyan¹,

Zettersten²

2021

Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology

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Does language reflect the categories of our mind or does it help create them? On one widespread view (cognitive priority), learning a language involves mapping words onto pre-existing categories, leaving little room for language to change the structure of conceptual content. On another view (linguistic priority), conceptual structure is shaped by experience with and use of language. We argue for the latter perspective and present experimental findings showing that nameability -the ease with which a feature can be named -influences problem-solving, category learning, and geometric reasoning. Even subtle manipulations affecting the availability of verbal labels can impact the categories people discover and use. Words do not simply reflect joints of nature, but are used to flexibly carve joints into nature.

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Core Knowledge or language-augmented cognition? The case of geometric reasoning

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

Finding categories through words: More nameable features improve category learning

Finding categories through words: More nameable features improve category learning

Finding categories through words: More nameable features improve category learning

Does Vocabulary Help Structure the Mind?

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