Elizabeth Spelke Concepts Quotations

The spontaneous understanding of geometrical concepts and maps by this remote human community provides evidence that core geometrical knowledge is a universal constituent of the human mind.

While geometrical concepts can be enriched by culture-specific devices like maps, or the terms of a natural language, underneath this variability lies a shared set of geometrical concepts. Those concepts allow adults and children with no formal education, and minimal spatial language, to categorize geometrical forms and to use geometrical relationship to represent the surrounding spatial layout.