ABSTRACT
A theory of shape is crucial to explaining human object recognition. The theoretical problem is that real instances of real categories are rarely ever the exact same shape. For example, rocking chairs, stuffed chairs, and desk chairs are the “same shape” only under some highly abstract description of shape. The chapter discusses developmental evidence suggesting that this abstract description of object shape is a product of early category learning. One possibility is that children learn to recognize shape caricatures, category by category. Alternatively, the developmental changes may be more general, changing how children perceive shape similarities for novel as well as known objects. The fact young children who are only slightly more advanced in their category knowledge recognize the shape caricatures suggests that early category learning plays a role in forming the processes of shape recognition. The findings indicate that a complete theory of shape and object recognition will be a developmental theory.
