The Differing Roles of Comparison and Contrast in Children's Categorization

Autor/inn/en	Namy, Laura L.; Clepper, Lauren E.
Titel	The Differing Roles of Comparison and Contrast in Children's Categorization
Quelle	In: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 107 (2010) 3, S.291-305 (15 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0022-0965
DOI	10.1016/j.jecp.2010.05.013
Schlagwörter	Classification; Experimental Psychology; Child Psychology; Comparative Analysis; Children; Evaluation Methods + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Classification system; Klassifikation; Klassifikationssystem; Experimentelle Psychologie; Kinderpsychologie; Child; Kind; Kinder
Abstract	Comparison of perceptually similar exemplars from an object category encourages children to overlook compelling perceptual similarities and use relational and functional properties more relevant for taxonomic categorization. This article investigates whether showing children a contrasting object that is perceptually similar but out of kind serves the same function as comparison in heightening children's attention to taxonomically relevant features. In this study, 4-year-olds completed a forced-choice categorization task in which they viewed exemplars from a target category and then selected among (a) a perceptually similar out-of-kind object, (b) a category member that differed perceptually from the exemplars, and (c) a thematically related object. Children were assigned to one of four conditions: No-Compare/No-Contrast, Compare/No-Contrast, No-Compare/Contrast, or Compare/Contrast. As in previous work, comparison increased the frequency of category responses, but there was no effect of contrast on categorization. However, only those in the Compare/Contrast condition displayed consistently taxonomic patterns of responding. Follow-up studies revealed that the effect of comparison plus contrast was evident only when comparison preceded, rather than followed, contrast information and that the value added by providing contrastive information is not attributable to the perceptual similarity between the category exemplars and the contrast object. Comparison and contrast make differing contributions to children's categorization. (Contains 3 figures and 2 tables.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10