Humans are often tasked to remember new faces so that they can recognize the faces later in time. Previous studies found that memory reports for basic visual features (e.g., colors and shapes) are susceptible to systematic distortions as a result of comparison with new visual input, especially when the input is perceived as similar to the memory.…

This research tested the hypothesis that young children's bias to generalize names for solid objects by shape is the product of statistical regularities among nouns in the early productive vocabulary. Fifteen- to 20-month-olds given intensive naming experiences with typical noun categories developed a precocious shape bias and showed accelerated…

Three studies explored whether children's tendency to extend object names on the basis of sameness of shape (shape bias) is specific to naming. Findings indicated that 2- and 3-year-olds showed shape bias both when asked to extend a novel name and when asked to select an object of the same kind as a target object; 3-year-olds also showed shape…