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Spare Me the Complements: An Immoderate Proposal for Eliminating the "We/They" Category Boundary

Harnad, Stevan (2007) Spare Me the Complements: An Immoderate Proposal for Eliminating the "We/They" Category Boundary. [Book Chapter] (In Press)

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Abstract

A speculative hypothesis about how to eliminate the "we/they" distinction by rearing children (during early critical years) in "aggregates in flux" instead of in kinship-based families: A category cannot be formed from positive examples only: one must be able to sample both what is and what is not in a category in order to recognise the category at all. The basis for the distinction is the features shared by the members (invariants), and absent from the non-members. In "aggregates in flux," the individual members would be constantly varying (and unrelated, genetically). The only invariant would be that they are all human.

Item Type:Book Chapter
Additional Information:Also available on the publisher's website: http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?SerieId=CS
Keywords:category learning, uncomplemented categories, early experience, socialization, critical period, ethnocentrism, we/they distinction
Subjects:Psychology > Cognitive Psychology
ID Code:5412
Deposited By:Harnad, Stevan
Deposited On:24 Feb 2007
Last Modified:12 Sep 2007 18:09

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References in Article

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Harnad, S. (1987, unpublished) Uncomplemented Categories, or, What is it Like to be a Bachelor? 1987 Presidential Address: Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/21/34/index.html

Harnad, S. (2003) Categorical Perception. Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. Nature Publishing Group. Macmillan. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/catperc.html

Harnad, S. (2003) Symbol-Grounding Problem. Encylopedia of Cognitive Science. Nature Publishing Group. Macmillan. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/symgro.htm

Harnad, S. (2003) Cognition is Categorization. UQaM Summer Institute in Cognitive Sciences on Categorization.

http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/catconf.html

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