Concepts and Conceptual Development Ecological and Intellectual Factors in Categorization

Concepts and Conceptual Development draws together a wide range of theorists to consider many different aspects of 'the psychology of concepts'.

Categories straddle the boundary between the mind and the world: they are socially developed mental representations, but they must fit the properties of real objects in the real environment if they are to be useful. Concepts and Conceptual Development reflects the view that a full understanding of categorization must take all these constraints into account. Everyday terms and categories depend not only on the implicit theories that people have about the world (their 'idealised cognitive models'), but also on the objective properties of particular objects and the perceptible similarities among these objects. An understanding of these multiple relationships can reshape studies of concepts and conceptual development. Concepts and Conceptual Development draws together theorists from a wide range of theoretical orientations to consider many different aspects of 'the psychology of concepts'.

Preface; List of contributors; 1. Introduction: the ecological and intellectual bases of categorisation Ulric Neisser; 2. From direct perception to conceptual structure Ulric Neisser; 3. Category cohesiveness, theories and cognitive archaeology Douglas L. Medin and William D. Wattenmaker; 4. Cognitive models and prototype theory George Lakoff; 5. The instability of graded structure: implications for the nature of concepts Lawrence W. Barsalou; 6. Decentralised control of categorisation: the role of prior processing episodes Lee R. Brooks; 7. Conceptual development and category structure Frank C. Keil; 8. Child-basic object categories and early lexical development Carolyn B. Mervis; 9. Scripts and categories: interrelationships in development Robyn Fivush; 10. How children constrain the possible meanings of words Ellen M. Markman; 11. The role of theories in a theory of concepts Robert N. McCauley; Indexes.

Categories straddle the boundary between the mind and the world: they are socially developed mental representations, but they must fit the properties of real objects in the real environment if they are to be useful. Concepts and Conceptual Development reflects the view that a full understanding of categorization must take all these constraints into account.