Ariel is nine months old. She understands that a bird is an animal and that an airplane is a vehicle even though both the objects have wings. According to Jean Mandler, which of the following statements is most likely true of Ariel's categorization of the objects?
A) Ariel has conceptually categorized the objects.
B) Ariel has categorized the objects by making perceptual discriminations between different categories of objects.
C) Ariel has perceptually categorized the objects.
D) Ariel has categorized the objects on the basis of prototypes that she extracted from the structural regularities of the objects.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

According to Jean Mandler's theory of conceptual categorization, infants as young as nine months old are capable of categorizing objects based on their conceptual understanding rather than solely on perceptual features. Therefore, Ariel is most likely categorizing the objects conceptually by understanding that they belong to different categories based on their functions (i.e. animal vs vehicle) rather than just their physical attributes.

Ariel Is Nine Months Old