Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - June 2011 - Volume 34, Issue 03  

Open Peer Commentary

A unified account of abstract structure and conceptual change: Probabilistic models and early learning mechanisms

Alison Gopnika1

a1 Department of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720. gopnik@berkeley.edu www.alisongopnik.com

Abstract

We need not propose, as Carey does, a radical discontinuity between core cognition, which is responsible for abstract structure, and language and “Quinian bootstrapping,” which are responsible for learning and conceptual change. From a probabilistic models view, conceptual structure and learning reflect the same principles, and they are both in place from the beginning.

(Online publication May 19 2011)

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