Moreover, providing children with shape category training can engender
an early shape bias, resulting in marked increases in vocabulary growth (Samuelson, 2002; Smith
et al., 2002). Given that the shape bias has been linked to several long-term outcomes, it is important
to outline the mechanisms that give rise to the relation between the shape bias and cognitive development
(for a discussion, see Perry & Samuelson, 2011). That is, how does the shape bias promote
word learning and categorization across time