Catégorisation, formation de concepts et induction : rôle des informations perceptives et conceptuelles chez le jeune enfant

Abstract

Summary : Categorization, concept formation and induction: The role of perceptual and conceptual information in young children. This work studies the use of perceptual and conceptual information during the construction and use of categories. Different kinds of experiments are considered, whose nature seem to determine the subject's response. The focus of young children on perceptual information (specificly related to the shape of objects) is shown mainly by categorization tasks. Induction tasks, however, demonstrate that young children tend to focus on conceptual information when they generalize properties to new objects. The results observed in these different kinds of experiments are examined in order to propose a hypothesis concerning which aspects of objects are considered, as a function of the nature, the meaning and the aim of the task. Key words : categorization, induction, development.