PSYC 2390 Chapter 8: Chapter 8
13 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Concepts involve grouping together eniies on the basis of some similarity. Concepts allow us to organize our experience into coherent paterns and to draw inferences in situaions in which we lack direct experience. Infants form concepts even during their irst months. Some involve objects, events, ideas, aciviies, and yet others dimensions of existence. The approach that emphasizes the development of conceptual representaions in general is based on the assumpion that the nature of people"s minds leads them to represent most or all concepts in a paricular way. The nature of this representaion is of primary interest, the details are secondary. Representaional development hypothesis: if young minds difer fundamentally from older ones, then young children"s concepts may also difer fundamentally. Ex: their concepts may be concrete, whereas those of older children may be abstract. Certain concepts ime, space, number, and living things are basic to our understanding of the world. Largely universal, present in infancy, and are constantly used.
