Shape and representational status in children's early naming

Why are ontological distinctions commonly ignored in ordinary language use? For example, why is a toy bear called a 'bear'? Jones and Smith argue that shape is central to the semantic representations of both children and adults (Jones, S.S., Smith, L.B., 1993. The place of perception in children's concepts. Cognitive Development 8, 113-139). In contrast, Soja et al. suggest that children do not rely on shape per se, but rather name representations, which are often indexed by shape (Soja, N.N., Carey, S., Spelke, E.S. 1992. Perception, ontology, and word meaning. Cognition 45, 101-107). Two studies were designed to test the latter hypothesis. Forty-seven children (2 years 5 months-3 years 11 months) and 32 adults participated. Each saw a series of line-drawings roughly shaped like various namable objects (e.g. a man). For half the participants, each line-drawing was described as depicting a shape that was created intentionally (e.g. someone painted a picture). For the remaining participants, each drawing was described as depicting a shape that was created accidentally (e.g. someone spilled some paint). Participants were simply asked to name each picture. We hypothesized that subjects would use shape as the basis of naming primarily when the shapes were intentional (and thus plausibly representations). The findings supported the predictions, for both children and adults. These results suggest that, although shape does play an important role in children's early naming, other factors are also important, including the mental state of the picture's creator (intentional vs. not). Thus, the data suggest that from an early age, children's picture naming incorporates their theory of mind.