Read the following passage:
In her pioneering 1934 analysis of cognitive development, psychologist Levina Vance challenged the mechanistic assumptions of early behaviorism by examining how internalized linguistic structures inform perceptual synthesis in young children. Rather than viewing perception as a passive aggregation of sensory inputs, Vance argued that pre-existing symbolic frameworks actively shape and give structure to immediate sensory experience. Behaviorist critics contended that Vance overstated the role of internal schema, maintaining that environmental stimuli alone determine behavioral responses. Nevertheless, subsequent empirical trials confirmed that children presented with ambiguous visual arrays organized those shapes according to internalized verbal categories. Vance’s conceptualization demonstrated that language does not merely describe completed thoughts; rather, it permeates the very process of perceptual organization, providing the structural matrix through which raw sensory data becomes intelligible experience.
In the context of the passage, which of the following best captures the meaning of the word "inform" as it is used in the first sentence?
- Aimpart factual data to
- give shape and structure toCevap
- Ccompletely dictate and control
- Dgradually weaken and undermine
- Econvert into explicit verbal labels