Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-ggg9q Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-03T01:35:32.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The role of language in transcending core knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2024

Susan Carey Open the ORCID record for Susan Carey [Opens in a new window]
Susan Carey*
Affiliation:
Psychology, Harvard University, MA, Cambridge, USA scarey@wjh.harvard.edu
*
*Corresponding author.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What Babies Know (WBK) argues that core knowledge has a unique place in cognitive architecture, between fully perceptual and fully conceptual systems of representation. Here I argue that WBK's core knowledge is on the perception side of the perception/cognition divide. I discuss some implications of this conclusion for the roles language learning might play in transcending core knowledge.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 47 , 2024 , e123
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Beck, J. (2019). Perception is analog: The argument from Weber's Law. The Journal of Philosophy, 116, 319–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, N. (2022). The border between thinking and seeing. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Carey, S. (2009). The origin of concepts. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feigenson, L., & Carey, S. (2003). Tracking individuals via object files: Evidence from infants’ manual search. Developmental Science, 6, 568–584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleitman, L. (1990). The structural sources of verb meaning. Language Acquisition, 1, 3–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hesse, J., & Tsao, D. (2020). The macaque face patch system: A turtle's underbelly for the brain. Nature Review Neuroscience, 12, 695–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hochmann, J. R. (2022). Representations of abstract relations in infancy. Open Mind, 6, 291–310.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hochmann, J. R., Tuerk, A. S., Sanborn, S., Zhu, R., Long, R., Dempster, M., & Carey, S. (2017). Children's representations of abstract relations in relational/array match to sample tasks. Cognitive Psychology, 99, 17–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hochmann, J. R., Zhu, R., & Carey, S. (under review-a). Conceptual combination of mental representations of same, not, and all requires learning the words “same” and “different.”Google Scholar
Hochmann, J. R., Zhu, R., Zhu, L., & Carey, S. (under review-b). Learning the words “same” and “different” in the preschool years.Google Scholar
Quilty-Dunn, J., Porot, N., & Mandelbaum, E. (2023). The best game in town: The reemergence of the language-of-thought hypothesis across the cognitive sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, 1–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spelke, E. S. (2022). What babies know: Core knowledge and composition. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wasserman, E., Castro, S., & Fagot, K (2017). Relational thinking in animals and humans: From percepts to concepts. In Call, J., Burgardt, G. M., Pepperberg, I. M., Snowden, C. T., & Zentall, T. (Eds), APA handbook of comparative psychology: Perception, learning & cognition (pp. 359–384). American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar