Tommy was at the park with his father and excitedly pointed to a squirrel and exclaimed, "kitty, kitty." his father pointed out that this was a squirrel, not a kitty. tommy's labeling of the animal best illustrates the process of:

This process is known as assimilation.

The concept of assimilation involves gathering and processing new information by incorporating it with existing information or knowledge. The process of assimilation was developed by the psychologist Jean Piaget. In this instance, when Tommy referred to a squirrel as "kitty" he used his existing knowledge of what a cat looked like (a small and furry animal) to make sense of a similar looking furry animal.