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Multiple Exemplars of Relations

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Language and Concept Acquisition from Infancy Through Childhood

Abstract

My mom, mother rabbit, mother country—these are all multiple exemplars of the relational concept “mother.” How do we come to understand that these are exemplars of the same concept? This chapter explains the mechanisms for learning about multiple exemplars, particularly multiple exemplars of relations. I discuss why perceiving relational exemplars is difficult, and how structure mapping theory (Gentner, Cogn Sci Multidiscip J 7(2):155–170, 1983) provides precise learning mechanisms that learners use to understand relational exemplars. Given the scope of the problems and solutions, a new area of research emerges: social relational learning. The social world is fundamentally characterized by relations such as kinships, friendships, alliances, and social hierarchies; these relations govern behavior and have far-reaching consequences (friends help; foes do not). Understanding social learning as a relational learning problem gives insight to how learners acquire complex knowledge about their social world—such as differentiating various exemplars of friends versus foes.

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Acknowledgment

I thank Bartłomiej Czech and Jane Childers for suggestions and insights in writing this chapter. Thanks to Shuai Shao and Yang Qisen for assistance in data collection and figure drawing.

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  1. Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Stella Christie

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  1. Stella Christie
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Correspondence to Stella Christie .

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  1. Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Jane B. Childers

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Christie, S. (2020). Multiple Exemplars of Relations. In: Childers, J. (eds) Language and Concept Acquisition from Infancy Through Childhood. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35594-4_11

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