This study was an investigation of the role of perceptual and functional features in the development of naturally-occurring and artifactual categories. Twenty-five college students, 16 fourth grade students, and 18 second-grade students participated in a sentence verification task. Each subject was presented sentences containing typical and atypical exemplars from naturally-occurring and artifactual categories paired with perceptual and functional features. The subjects were to indicate whether each sentence was true or false. A four-way mixed design ANOVA was performed on response times and error rates. A general developmental trend in category acquisition was indicated by the data. Children first learn typical naturallyoccurring category items. As they grow older, naturally-occurring categories are learned most thoroughly because of their clear-cut membership. Artifactual categories, which are less limited in membership, take longer for children to process. There was no evidence in the data to suggest that the differences between the two category types was due to a perceptual feature basis for naturally-occurring categories.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/183002 |
| Date | January 1984 |
| Creators | Wade, Elizabeth G. |
| Contributors | Caplan, Leslie J. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 47 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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