Client
Our client is The Categorization and Reasoning Lab (CRL) in the Psychology Dept. at Northeastern University. The CRL seeks to answer questions about the basic cognitive processes of:
- categorization
- reasoning
- conceptual development.
The major developmental research program in the Categorization and Reasoning Lab concerns the role of taxonomic relations in conceptual development. Previous research suggests that taxonomic relations are extremely important for organizing knowledge and guiding inferences in this domain from early in development.
Children's concepts of living things exhibit surprisingly rich structure; they encompass features beyond the readily perceptible, promote inductive inferences, and may entail the assumption of essence.
To explore the role of knowledge, several projects in the Categorization and Reasoning Lab examine the development of folk biological reasoning in populations which differ with respect to both richness of experience with plants and animals, and cultural beliefs about relations among humans and the natural world.
CRL Powerpoint explaining the Project's objectives