... it is an example of acquired learning. Either way, its existence has a number of possible implications, such as the support it gives to views regarding the acquisition of biological knowledge. Rakison and Butterworth (1998) showed that categorisation in early infants and neonates is purely 'perceptual', or based on basic physical features (such as 'animals have legs, vehicles have wheels'). By the end of the first year, categorical reasoning has become much more strongly 'conceptual', being based on common function and behaviour. At this point distinctions can be made where perceptual contrast has been minimised. Therefore it is at this point that the child can be seen to make the first proper animate/inanimate distinctions. They have been shown to understand that visually similar items such as (birds and aeroplanes) are still categorically different due to the biological nature of one and the artificial nature of the other (Mandler and McDonough, ...

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