Abstract: Shape bias, which is well known in language development of children, refers to the phenomenon that children tend to extend the name of target objects to test objects sharing the same shape. This phenomenon has been observed on the performance of three years old or even younger children in some paradigms, such as the words extension, category and inductive reasoning. Following studies have found that this phenomenon was modulated by various factors, including the attributes of stimulus, intention of designer, causal/comparative relation and social-pragmatic cues. There are two different theoretical explanations for the shape bias: the association view and conceptual view. However, until now, these theories haven’t been integrated yet. Future studies are necessary to further explore the neural mechanism of shape bias in terms of neurobiological approach, cross-cultural studies and special samples.

Key words: shape bias, cognition, language development, children