3-079 - Boundaries for the biases in reasoning about categories

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The propensity to reason about categories as a whole is essential to human cognition. Various cognitive biases support this propensity by promoting generalizations and an interest in learning. In this symposium, we address three such biases: a tendency to believe category members are homogeneous, a tendency to form higher-order generalizations about characteristic properties of categories (e.g., animal kinds have characteristic diets), and a tendency to prefer to learn about categories over individuals. In each talk, the authors not only provide evidence for these biases, but also outline contexts in which the biases do not apply.

In the first talk, the authors show that children’s bias to view novel categories as homogenous decreases as they learn about the heterogeneity of familiar categories (e.g., some birds do not fly). Furthermore, this bias is sensitive to adults’ explanations for properties (e.g., why an animal is brown).

The authors in the second talk provide evidence that children form new high-order generalizations from contrasting category information (e.g., animal kinds have characteristic eyes), but do not use these new generalizations to guide the information they seek about novel categories.

In the third talk, the authors show that although young children prefer to learn about a novel animal category over an individual, the preference to learn about a novel social category over an individual is developmentally protracted.

Finally, a seminal researcher in children’s reasoning about categories will discuss the theoretical insights provided by bringing together these distinct tendencies in categorical reasoning and discussing their boundaries.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chair

• Shelbie Sutherland, University of Toronto

Discussant

• Susan Gelman, University of Michigan

Individual Presentations

• The Role of Knowledge and Explanation in Attenuating Children’s Expectations of Category Homogeneity - Presenting Author: Kelsey Moty, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Amanda C Brandone, Lehigh University

• How Children Form Overhypotheses About Animals - Presenting Author: Kristan Marchak, University of Michigan; Non-Presenting Author: Susan Gelman, University of Michigan

• Developmental Shifts in a Preference to Learn About Social Categories Versus Individual Category Members - Presenting Author: Shelbie Sutherland, University of Toronto; Non-Presenting Author: Nicholas Rule, University of Toronto