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Confronting complexity: insights from the details of behavior over multiple timescales
Author(s) -
Samuelson Larissa K.,
Horst Jessica S.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00667.x
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , focus (optics) , cognitive psychology , psychology , phenomenon , similarity (geometry) , cognitive science , cognition , work (physics) , cognitive bias , measure (data warehouse) , computer science , artificial intelligence , epistemology , neuroscience , mechanical engineering , philosophy , physics , database , optics , image (mathematics) , engineering
Young children tend to generalize novel names for novel solid objects by similarity in shape, a phenomenon dubbed ‘the shape bias’. We believe that the critical insights needed to explain the shape bias in particular, and cognitive development more generally, come from Dynamic Systems Theory. We present two examples of recent work focusing on the real‐time decision processes that underlie performance in the tasks used to measure the shape bias. We show how this work, and the dynamic systems perspective, sheds light on the controversy over the origins and development of the shape bias. In addition, we suggest that this dynamic systems perspective provides the right level for explanations of development because it requires a focus on the details of behavior over multiple timescales .