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Updated: Jul 15, 2025
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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
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Incomplete language-of-thought in infancy
1CNRS UMR5229 - Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, Bron, France. hochmann@isc.cnrs.frhttps://sites.google.com/site/jrhochmann/.
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences
|September 28, 2023
Summary
Infants may not have a complete language-of-thought (LoT) despite their reasoning skills. Current evidence does not support discrete representations of abstract relations in infants, indicating an incomplete LoT.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- The concept of a language-of-thought (LoT) offers a unifying explanation for infants' advanced reasoning abilities across various cognitive domains.
- Existing theories propose that infants possess a sophisticated internal representational system akin to a propositional LoT.
Purpose of the Study:
- To critically evaluate the empirical evidence supporting the existence of a full-fledged propositional language-of-thought in human infants.
- To determine if infants possess discrete representations of abstract relations, a key component of a complete LoT.
Main Methods:
- Systematic review and critical appraisal of empirical studies investigating infant cognitive capacities.
- Analysis of behavioral and neuroimaging data related to infant reasoning and representation.
Main Results:
- Current empirical evidence does not provide convincing support for infants possessing discrete representations of abstract relations.
- The findings suggest that the proposed language-of-thought in infants remains incomplete, challenging the unifying account of their reasoning skills.
Conclusions:
- The hypothesis of a full-fledged propositional language-of-thought in infants is not empirically supported by current evidence.
- Infants' cognitive development, particularly in abstract relation representation, may follow a trajectory different from the proposed LoT model.
- Further research is needed to understand the nature of infant representation and its relation to cognitive development.
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