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“Making Twos”: Pairing as an Alternative to the Taxonomic Mode of Representation
Author(s) -
Lancy David F.,
Strathern Andrew J.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1981.83.4.02a00020
Subject(s) - reinterpretation , new guinea , cognition , representation (politics) , pairing , task (project management) , computer science , psychology , cognitive psychology , cognitive science , sociology , ethnology , aesthetics , political science , philosophy , law , physics , superconductivity , management , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , politics , economics
Melpa‐speaking children do very poorly on cognitive tasks, in general, and as compared to children from another traditional society in Papua New Guinea. Causes for this difference are sought in an analysis of the tasks which shows them to require a taxonomic strategy for successful performance and in an analysis of the folk taxonomies of the respective societies which shows them to vary in complexity. Further study of Melpa representation reveals that this can better be represented as a pairing rather than a taxonomizing tendency This finding allows a reinterpretation of the cognitive task results . [Cognition, child development, ethnosemantics, world view, Melpa, Papua New Guinea]