Article Instance

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{
    "pk": 27748,
    "title": "Where do measurement units come from?",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "Units as they exist today are highly abstract. Meters, miles,\nand other modern measures have no obvious basis in concrete\nphenomena and can apply to anything, anywhere. We show\nhere, however, that units have not always been this way.\nFocusing on length, we first analyze the origins of length\nunits in the Oxford English Dictionary; next, we review\nethnographic observations about length measurement in 111\ncultures. Our survey shows that length units have\noverwhelmingly come from concrete sources—body parts,\nartifacts, and other tangible phenomena—and are often tied to\nparticular contexts. We next propose a reconstruction of how\nabstract units might have emerged gradually over cultural\ntime through processes of comparison. Evidence from how\nchildren understand length and measurement provides support\nfor this account. The case of units offers a powerful\nillustration of how some of our most important, pervasive\nabstractions can arise from decidedly concrete, often\nembodied origins.",
    "language": "eng",
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": ""
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "measurement"
        },
        {
            "word": "abstraction"
        },
        {
            "word": "Units"
        },
        {
            "word": "Comparison"
        },
        {
            "word": "Language"
        },
        {
            "word": "Culture"
        },
        {
            "word": "analogy"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Publication-based-Talks",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2kg3383g",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Kensy",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Cooperrider",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "Northwestern",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Dedre",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Gentner",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "Northwestern",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": null,
    "date_accepted": null,
    "date_published": "2018-01-01T13:00:00-05:00",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
        {
            "label": "PDF",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/27748/galley/17388/download/"
        }
    ]
}