How Special Are Objects? Children's Reasoning About Objects, Parts, and Holes

by: Nuria Giralt, Paul Bloom

Psychological Science, Vol. 11, No. 6. (2000), pp. 497-501.

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Abstract

Discrete physical objects have a special status in cognitive and linguistic development. Infants track and enumerate objects, young children are biased to construe novel words as referring to objects, and, when asked to count an array of items, preschool children tend to count the discrete objects, even if explicitly asked to do otherwise. We address here the question of whether discrete physical objects are the only entities that have this special status, or whether other individuals are salient as well. In two experiments, we found that 3-year-olds are just as good at identifying, tracking, and counting certain nonobject entities (holes in Experiment 1; holes and parts in Experiment 2) as they are with objects. These results are discussed in light of different theories of the nature and development of children's object bias.

@article{citeulike:2805785, abstract = {Discrete physical objects have a special status in cognitive and linguistic development. Infants track and enumerate objects, young children are biased to construe novel words as referring to objects, and, when asked to count an array of items, preschool children tend to count the discrete objects, even if explicitly asked to do otherwise. We address here the question of whether discrete physical objects are the only entities that have this special status, or whether other individuals are salient as well. In two experiments, we found that 3-year-olds are just as good at identifying, tracking, and counting certain nonobject entities (holes in Experiment 1; holes and parts in Experiment 2) as they are with objects. These results are discussed in light of different theories of the nature and development of children's object bias.}, author = {Giralt, Nuria and Bloom, Paul }, citeulike-article-id = {2805785}, doi = {10.1111/1467-9280.00295}, journal = {Psychological Science}, keywords = {children, development, holes, object, parts, reasoning, vision}, number = {6}, pages = {497--501}, posted-at = {2008-05-16 20:56:58}, priority = {0}, title = {How Special Are Objects? Children's Reasoning About Objects, Parts, and Holes}, url = {http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00295}, volume = {11}, year = {2000} }

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TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2805785 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2805785 TI - How Special Are Objects? Children's Reasoning About Objects, Parts, and Holes JF - Psychological Science VL - 11 IS - 6 SP - 497 EP - 501 N2 - Discrete physical objects have a special status in cognitive and linguistic development. Infants track and enumerate objects, young children are biased to construe novel words as referring to objects, and, when asked to count an array of items, preschool children tend to count the discrete objects, even if explicitly asked to do otherwise. We address here the question of whether discrete physical objects are the only entities that have this special status, or whether other individuals are salient as well. In two experiments, we found that 3-year-olds are just as good at identifying, tracking, and counting certain nonobject entities (holes in Experiment 1; holes and parts in Experiment 2) as they are with objects. These results are discussed in light of different theories of the nature and development of children's object bias. KW - children KW - development KW - holes KW - object KW - parts KW - reasoning KW - vision AU - Giralt, Nuria AU - Bloom, Paul PY - 2000/// UR - http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00295 ER -

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