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Related Concept Videos

Language Development01:22

Language Development

308
Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
308
Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development01:14

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

583
The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
583
The Nativist Approach01:21

The Nativist Approach

33
The nativist approach to infant cognitive development proposes that infants are born with inherent knowledge structures that allow them to interpret the world almost immediately. This perspective contrasts with earlier developmental theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget, which emphasized a more gradual acquisition of cognitive abilities through interaction with the environment. One key concept in this approach is object permanence — the understanding that objects continue to...
33
Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development01:14

Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development

32
The preoperational stage, the second of Jean Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, spans approximately ages 2 to 7 and is characterized by the emergence of symbolic thinking. During this stage, children use language, images, and symbols to represent objects and concepts, enabling them to engage in imaginative and pretend play. This symbolic thinking supports children's ability to perform make-believe actions, such as imagining a broom as a horse or their hand as a phone,...
32
Language and Cognition01:27

Language and Cognition

317
Language serves as a bridge between ideas and communication, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world. Psychologists have long debated whether language shapes thought or vice versa. This discussion gained grip with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s, who proposed that language determines thought, a concept known as linguistic determinism. They suggested that the vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive reality.
317
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development from Childhood into Adulthood01:25

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development from Childhood into Adulthood

72
Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development emphasizes the role of thinking in a child's learning process, suggesting that children are naturally curious about their environment. His approach to development is discontinuous, proposing that cognitive abilities progress through distinct stages, each with unique characteristics. Central to Piaget's theory is schemata—mental structures that allow individuals to understand and interpret the world.
Schemata: Building Blocks of...
72

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 28, 2025

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
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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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Discourse referents in infancy.

Gabor Brody1, Gergely Csibra2

  • 1Department of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences, Brown University.

Psychological Review
|February 10, 2025
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Human infants link words to objects using "discourse referents," representations tied to communication, not just perception. This allows understanding "entities under discussion" even when not visible.

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Last Updated: May 28, 2025

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics

Background:

  • Human infants develop the ability to connect conceptual descriptions with objects within their first year.
  • Understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying this early language-object association is crucial for developmental research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the cognitive architecture enabling infants to link conceptual descriptions to objects.
  • To propose and investigate the role of "discourse referents" as a key representational format in early communication.

Main Methods:

  • Reviewing evidence from developmental psychology to establish criteria for infant discourse referents.
  • Analyzing infant cognitive capacities for representing entities within communicative contexts.

Main Results:

  • Infants create representations of entities within communicative episodes, encoded from a shared discourse perspective.
  • These representations can persist even when entities are perceptually unavailable or displaced.

Conclusions:

  • Infants can represent "entities under discussion," not just "entities at locations."
  • Early conceptual descriptions are primarily elicited by and applied to these discourse-based representations.
  • Successful referential communication involves aligning perceptual object representations with discourse referents.