counter this argument, we next turn to recent research on adults’ and children’s acquisition of names for hierarchical categories. This program of work has applied a DST perspective to a phenomenon—the suspicious coincidence effect (SCE)—previously thought to reflect abstract reasoning about category membership. A dynamic systems approach has integrated the SCE with the trajectory of vocabulary development and with lower level processes such as perceptual comparison and working memory. In addition, this perspective grounds the SCE in neural population dynamics via DFT. 4. Generalization of names for hierarchical categories The challenge in learning names for hierarchically nested categories is in inferring the correct level of application of a novel word based on limited exposure.