Generalization in linguistic category formation based on the prototype effect

Abstract

The development of cognition in humans is tightly coupled with that of language and conceptualization. It's known that children as early as one year after birth are able to recognize the various objects as belonging to a single category. Here we report a series of experiments investigating how humans perceive the environment in terms of categorization based on the "prototype effect", studied in the literature as a characteristic feature of categorization. We focused on two parameters ("typicality" and "similarity") in the process of perceptual categorization. Using a direct rating paradigm in categorical judgment, we derived continuous parameter measures for the "typicality" and "similarity" of objects based on the subject's estimation. The results suggest some cognitive constraints on the development of language, as it relates to the perception of sensory and motor information in the interaction with the environment. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.