Cognitive Development

This chapter interleaves a review of theories of cognitive development with accounts of the nature of concepts. Of central concern is how young children come to share concepts with members of the community they join. Different classes of cognitive development make contact with different theories about the nature of concepts. Learning theories (e.g., associationist, connectionist and systems theories) and stage theories assume that infants and very young children build concepts from simple sensory and perceptual inputs. The speakers' use of words highlights relevant sensory‐perceptual input, the kind that the mind will combine into associative networks, logical structures, or connectionist networks. These in turn can support the induction or construction of true, that is abstract, concepts. Until this happens, the young child cannot help but be perception‐bound. True concepts are characterized in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, not particular percepts. They also can be continued according to logical rules.