The development of categorization: traditional and contemporary perspectives

Abstract

Categorization as a process to give coherence and organize the world is subject of studies and controversies in the field of psychology. Specifically, the features of the categorization in development are topics of discussions that are relevant nowadays. This paper collects the most important findings in this topic to show the traditional perspectives of the debate shape-function, and the new perspectives of embodied cognition. These see the categorization, and also other cognitive processes, as a result of the relation “perceptuo-motor” with the world. This paper shows the contributions that these visions give to categorization and the outstanding questions for research in this area.