Развитие понятий в младенческом возрасте и раннем детстве: когнитивные и нейронные основы

Психология. Журнал Высшей школы экономики. 2022. Т. 19. № 3. С. 626–641.

Котова Т. Н., Kotov A. A.

The present article contains a review of contemporary research on the development of concepts in children in infancy and early childhood. Human concepts underlie such fundamental cognitive functions as thinking, problem solving, planning, and decision making. The study of children's formation of concepts has recently been gaining popularity in cognitive developmental psychology. The main topics are determining the type of categories available to children for learning, establishing the age boundaries in which this learning typically occurs, and the factors that influence success. The review will present crucial research demonstrating that the development of concepts and categories in infancy and early childhood is the basis for many speech- and language-based cognitive processes. In addition, we will also discuss the possibilities of using language and verbalization to develop categorization ability and category learning at different ages, and whether training in verbalization ability could theoretically help children at an earlier age to learn different types of categories and to be aware of the categorization rule. The effects of early categorization are structured in the review in regards to two directions of study of concept development: multiple systems learning theory and categorization level development. We show that the development of concepts and categories supports the formation of basic cognitive functions: long-term memory, selective attention, and communication. The experimental data and theoretical concepts presented in this review are virtually unreported in Russian articles

Keywords: cognitive development, когнитивное развитие

Publication based on the results of: Brain and math: Cognition, age, and environmental factors (2022)