Building Object Categories in Developmental Time: The 32nd Carnegie Cognition Symposium, June 7-9, 2002

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

A three-day symposium, to be held June 7-9, 2002, will bring together leading researchers in the fields of cognitive development, visual perception, language acquisition, developmental neuroscience, and computational modeling to address key questions about the nature of category representations and the mechanisms that produce them. Speakers will focus on how children build object categories, beginning with the basic architecture of the brain and with the constraints or biases that provide the foundation of early perceptual experience. These developments will be considered in the light of subsequent growth of categorical and semantic abilities. Research will be presented that examines three interrelated themes: (1) fundamental processes by which children are able to individuate and categorize objects and their physical properties; (2) ways in which language transforms children's emerging categories and the selection of features relevant for object categorization; and (3) higher-level cognitive processes that guide the formation of coherent systems of category knowledge. The aim is to encourage the exchange of ideas, to synthesize the field's progress, and to build links to broader theoretical concerns. An additional aim is to contribute to the development of junior scientists and students. To this end, an invited cohort of promising young scholars will attend the meeting and interact with the speakers in an accessible and facilitating setting. A final aim of the symposium is to provide early childhood educators and clinicians with practical information about the way that infants perceive and learn about objects in the world. This knowledge may serve as a valuable tool for assessing aberrant development in at-risk infants in the earliest stages of life. The results of the symposium will be published as the 32nd in the series of Carnegie Cognition Symposium volumes.