Early Category and Concept Development

Whether or not infants' earliest perception of the world is a "blooming, buzzing confusion", it is not long before they come to perceive structure and order among the objects and events around them. At the core of this process, and cognitive development in general, is the ability to categorize - to group events, objects or properties together - and to form mental representations, or concepts, that encapsulate the commonalities and structure of these categories. Categorization is the primary mean