In recent psychology news, researchers have discovered that babies from at least four months old are already employing sophisticated categorization.
We all take categorization for granted, but it helps us understand the world. We place cars in the category of automobiles, ways of traveling, by color by engine specs, etc
In the same way, we can classify animals.
Recent research suggests that by the age of four months babies are already classifying things according to inanimate or animate.
In a unique method, researchers tracked the eye movements of babies as they observed pictures of inanimate vs animate objects.
From the article:
"The scientists recorded the babies' eye movements and the durations of their gaze as they looked at pairs of pictures representing animate or inanimate things from eight different categories (e.g., human faces and natural or artificial objects). The data obtained from eye tracking on babies were matched with measures of brain activity obtained from a group of adults using fMRI, in order to determine the correspondence between the categorical object organisation emerging from the babies' eyes and that mapped on the adults' visual cortex."
The study revealed that babies already by the age of 4 could tell there was a higher link between crocodiles and man as opposed to a tree based on the animation of the former. As babies develop more sophisticated categorizations come into play with furriness becoming a factor and so on.
"This study* shows that humans are born with a neural organisation predisposed to representing object categories crucial to their survival."
The summary of the research is here:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220216112257.htm
absolutely and thank you! let me know what you think I have considered making it into a book. It’s under academic writing and it’s called “final draft meme paper”
it should open when you click on it:
https://evehfritz.wixsite.com/website
Brilliant observation👍 categorisation that places a certain priority over indivduals over others just just because they belong to my group leads to a tribalism and can stoke racism and other nasty facets of social behaviour. I'll check that paper out and if you wouldn't mind giving the link to your paper I'd love to read that too. 👍👍
Yes...and it can also be our great downfall. Categorical thinking, while we as humans are made to be this way naturally for survival reasons, can lead us astray. There are lot's of philosophers who study this topic of the mind,...while I can't recall his name he wrote something in regards to categorizing in the brain and how it can lead to prejudice. I'm not sure if this is related to your article, I wish I could recall more but I do mention it in my memetic paper on my website....
I couldn't find him when I tried to google him. I believe he was the first to come up with the idea of categorical thinking....but I found this instead: https://inspire.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/2013/11/13/how-categorical-thinking-creates-a-biased-view-of-the-world/index.html
The writer seems to have some interesting views on categorical thinking. What I remember this famous philosopher saying though is that we have REASON, and with reason, and whatever part of the brain that is in, we can make decisions about these categories based on our higher aspirations and values.
Great reading! It is amazing how humans are perfectly designed, yet we still don't have the cures or solutions for many of the worse diseases like Alzheimer's.
Thank you Daniel