TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparison in the Development of Categories
AU - Gentner, Dedre
AU - Namy, Laura L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation grant SBR-9511757 awarded to the first author. We thank Sandra Waxman and Phillip Wolff for comments on this paper and Linda Smith for discussions of this research. We also thank Sheila Singh, Marjorie Jones, and Michelle Osmundson for help in data collection. Finally, we thank two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions.
Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 1999
Y1 - 1999
N2 - Recent research on children's word learning has led to a paradox. Although word learning appears to be a deep source of insight into conceptual knowledge for children, preschoolers often categorize objects on the basis of shallow perceptual features such as shape. The current studies seek to resolve this discrepancy. We suggest that comparing multiple instances of a category enables children to extract deeper relational commonalities among category members. We examine 4-year-olds' categorization behaviors when asked to select a match for a target object (e.g., an apple) between a perceptually similar, out-of-kind object (e.g., a balloon) and a perceptually different category match (e.g., a banana). Children who learn a novel word as a label for multiple instances of the category are more likely to select the category match over the perceptual match. Children who learn a label for only one instance are equally likely to select either alternative. This effect is present even when individual target instances are more perceptually similar to the perceptual choice than to the category choice. We conclude that structural alignment processes may be important in the development of category understanding.
AB - Recent research on children's word learning has led to a paradox. Although word learning appears to be a deep source of insight into conceptual knowledge for children, preschoolers often categorize objects on the basis of shallow perceptual features such as shape. The current studies seek to resolve this discrepancy. We suggest that comparing multiple instances of a category enables children to extract deeper relational commonalities among category members. We examine 4-year-olds' categorization behaviors when asked to select a match for a target object (e.g., an apple) between a perceptually similar, out-of-kind object (e.g., a balloon) and a perceptually different category match (e.g., a banana). Children who learn a novel word as a label for multiple instances of the category are more likely to select the category match over the perceptual match. Children who learn a label for only one instance are equally likely to select either alternative. This effect is present even when individual target instances are more perceptually similar to the perceptual choice than to the category choice. We conclude that structural alignment processes may be important in the development of category understanding.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0885-2014(99)00016-7
DO - 10.1016/S0885-2014(99)00016-7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0000102323
VL - 14
SP - 487
EP - 513
JO - Cognitive Development
JF - Cognitive Development
SN - 0885-2014
IS - 4
ER -