TY - JOUR
T1 - Preschoolers' use of superordinate relations in classification and language
AU - Waxman, Sandra
AU - Gelman, Rochel
N1 - Funding Information:
Support for the research came from NSF grant BNS-8004881 to RG. Parts of this paper were presented in a paper by SW entitled Superordinate Classification in Preschool Children at the conference of the Society for Research in Child Development, April, 1983, Detroit. RG helped finish the manuscript while she was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and supported by funds from Alfred P. Sloan and Spencer Foundation as well as NIHHCD Senior Fellowship # F33HDO6623. We are grateful to M. Callanan, L. Gleitman, E. Meek, R. Ostrin, H. Schmidt, E. Shipley, and E. Spelke for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Special thanks to J. Sabini for suggestions that led lo Experiment II.
PY - 1986/4
Y1 - 1986/4
N2 - Preschoolers' difficulty in accessing superordinate relations in classification contrasts sharply with their facility in accessing superordinate relations in language use. We consider two hypotheses regarding this discrepancy. First, certain aspects of classification tasks may obscure superordinate relations. In free classification tasks, the open-ended instructions leave the choice among possible organization schemes unconstrained, allowing for virtually any grouping (e.g., thematic, idiosyncratic), not necessarily a taxonomic grouping. Second, children's facility with superordinate relations in language may be due to a language-specific constraint in development: Children may interpret novel labels as referring to taxonomic (as opposed to thematic or idiosyncratic) relations. In Experiment I, we used 'clues' to focus preschoolers' attention on superordinate relations. Clues were (1) superordinate category labels (Label condition); (2) sets of typical category instances (Instance condition); or (3) typical instances with instructions to consider the instances as a group (Group condition). Four-year-olds classified successfully in all conditions. Three-year-olds classified well with labels, but not with instances; their performance in the Group condition was intermediate. In Experiment II, we focus on the role of labels in superordinate classification. If labels highlight taxonomic relations, then a set of category instances paired with a novel label should serve as an especially effective taxonomic clue. With the introduction of a novel word, 3-year-olds classified as successfully as children provided with known English labels. The powerful relation between language and classification is discussed.
AB - Preschoolers' difficulty in accessing superordinate relations in classification contrasts sharply with their facility in accessing superordinate relations in language use. We consider two hypotheses regarding this discrepancy. First, certain aspects of classification tasks may obscure superordinate relations. In free classification tasks, the open-ended instructions leave the choice among possible organization schemes unconstrained, allowing for virtually any grouping (e.g., thematic, idiosyncratic), not necessarily a taxonomic grouping. Second, children's facility with superordinate relations in language may be due to a language-specific constraint in development: Children may interpret novel labels as referring to taxonomic (as opposed to thematic or idiosyncratic) relations. In Experiment I, we used 'clues' to focus preschoolers' attention on superordinate relations. Clues were (1) superordinate category labels (Label condition); (2) sets of typical category instances (Instance condition); or (3) typical instances with instructions to consider the instances as a group (Group condition). Four-year-olds classified successfully in all conditions. Three-year-olds classified well with labels, but not with instances; their performance in the Group condition was intermediate. In Experiment II, we focus on the role of labels in superordinate classification. If labels highlight taxonomic relations, then a set of category instances paired with a novel label should serve as an especially effective taxonomic clue. With the introduction of a novel word, 3-year-olds classified as successfully as children provided with known English labels. The powerful relation between language and classification is discussed.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0885-2014(86)80016-8
DO - 10.1016/S0885-2014(86)80016-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:46149140141
VL - 1
SP - 139
EP - 156
JO - Cognitive Development
JF - Cognitive Development
SN - 0885-2014
IS - 2
ER -