What would be the consequences of a proto-human species that could generalize but not abstract well?

I define "generalization" as the ability to put things together into groups based on common characteristics. I define "abstraction" to be the ability to articulate what those characteristics actually are (I'm open to choosing new words for those concepts). For instance, I know that apples, cheese, and beef go into the category "food", even if I can't articulate the property that they all share (I can eat them).

However, I can do both, so it's hard for me to think about an intelligence that can't. I'm working on a world with a proto-human species, and I'm thinking about their language and cognitive abilities. Let's say that they could generalize decently well but couldn't abstract very well. What would that mean? Would it even make sense? For instance, I suspect that they would be able to group foods into the "food" category, but wouldn't be able to sort items based on colour. Would it even make sense for such an ability to be lacking?

posted about 7 years ago

Michael Stachowsky‭

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