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Related Experiment Videos

Conceiving of entities as objects and as stuff.

Sandeep Prasada1, Krag Ferenz, Todd Haskell

  • 1Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. prasada@ruccs.rutgers.edu

Cognition
|March 1, 2002
PubMed
Summary
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We distinguish between viewing entities as objects versus as stuff based on perceived structure arbitrariness. Nonarbitrary structures encourage object construals, while arbitrary structures favor substance construals, impacting how we categorize and understand objects.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Philosophy of Mind

Background:

  • Human cognition often categorizes entities as discrete objects or amorphous substances.
  • The underlying cognitive mechanisms differentiating these construals remain incompletely understood.
  • Existing research links physical properties like cohesiveness and shape to ontological categorization.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose and empirically test a novel distinction between object and substance construals based on perceived structural arbitrariness.
  • To investigate how features indicating nonarbitrary structure influence object construals.
  • To connect this framework to existing findings in lexical development and ontological categorization.

Main Methods:

  • Six experiments were conducted to assess participants' construals of entities.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Stimuli varied in structural properties such as regularity, repetition, and function.
  • Participant responses were analyzed to identify biases towards object or substance construals.

    • Main Results:

    • Properties signaling nonarbitrary structure (regularity, repetition, structure-dependent functions) significantly biased participants toward object construals.
    • Conversely, arbitrary structural features were associated with substance construals.
    • The findings provide empirical support for the proposed structure-based distinction.

    Conclusions:

    • The arbitrariness of an entity's structure is a key factor differentiating object and substance construals.
    • This framework offers a unified explanation for various findings in lexical development, including the role of cohesiveness, shape, and complexity.
    • The proposed account has implications for understanding the nature of construals and their relation to different stances (physical, design, intentional).