Children's Category Structure and False Memories

Abstract

Extensive previous research has focused on the development of children's conceptual organization and its effects on children's veridical memory. The present research investigated whether the structure of children's category knowledge also affected their false memories using categorical lists in the DRM paradigm, a listlearning method commonly used in false memory research. In Experiment 1, the effects of graded category structure were examined with both third and sixth graders by accessing false memories for unstudied critical items of differing output dominance in category production. In Experiment 2, the effects of hierarchical category structure were examined with third graders by manipulating the hierarchical level of studied list items (basic or subordinate) and unstudied critical items (superordinate, basic, or subordinate). The results show that by age 10, the graded and hierarchical structure is present in children's conceptual organization and affects formation of false memories. Theoretical implications of the present findings are discussed.Key words: category structure, false memory, list learning paradigm, memory developmentThe organization of concepts has long been an important topic in the research of human mind: it is thought to underlie several important cognitive functions that humans constantly engage in daily lives, such as classification and memory. In consequence, acquisition of an adult-like conceptual organization became a major focus in research of cognitive development.Extensive earlier literature suggested that children's conceptual organization underwent a shift in focus from thematic/complementary relations (e.g., dog grouped with leash) to taxonomic/similarity relations (e.g., dog grouped with cat) based on their responses in sorting objects on a table into groups (e.g., Annett, 1959;Inhelder & Piaget, 1964;Vygotsky, 1962). Some researchers hence proposed that early in development, children's knowledge was organized in terms of schematic or script-based relationships derived from perceptual-motor experiences and real-world scenes and events (e.g., Denney, 1974;Nelson, 1974), and later beyond about age 8 and through adulthood, This research was supported by Grant NSC90-2413-H-194-022 from National Science Council of Taiwan, R.O.C. to W.-C. C. The authors thank Yuh-Shiow Lee for valuable discussions on this work; an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article; Tian-yoong Cheng for assistance with data processing; the children for their participation; and the staff of the elementary schools for assistance with testing arrangements.

Classifiers augment and maintain shape-based categorization in Mandarin speakers

“…Chen (1978) following Nelson (1974) found that between five and eight years of age Mandarinspeaking children's concepts of solid objects increase in both size and hierarchical organization. Chiang and Chiu (2006) offer evidence that Mandarin children have categories organized hierarchically by 10 years of age. To our knowl edge, only two published studies have examined the development of shape-based 1 categorization in Mandarin speakers: Li et al (2009) andImai et al (2010).…”

Opposite developmental trends for false recognition of basic and superordinate names

“…Actually, relying exclusively on the concept of gist, it would be difficult to explain such results. As was pointed out earlier (Chiang & Chiu, 2006), fuzzy-trace theory is unspecific about which item*dominant basic or category label* is the best representation of a categorised list. Gist-based explanations are problematic, especially if one accepts that the category name, corresponding to the theme of the list, is considered to be the gist representation.…”

“…Two recent studies, one with adults (Park et al, 2005) and the other with older children (Chiang & Chiu, 2006), showed that when the critical lure is from another level of categorisation of the list items, false memories are rarely produced. Adults and older children (around 10 years old) usually do not falsely recognise names of categories 1 It is important to note that our own view differs from the associative activation theory (AAT) by Howe (2005Howe ( , 2006a in the sense that his theory is not considered a dual-process theory.…”

“…(superordinate level) that are labels of the presented lists of exemplars (basic level) (Chiang & Chiu, 2006;Park et al, 2005), because those words are from distinct levels of the categorical hierarchy. In our view the distinctiveness of critical words, as a result of their distinct position in the hierarchical level, makes them relatively easy to suppress.…”

“…The DRM procedure has also been used to study false memory for categorical information in adults (e.g., Dewhurst, 2001;Seamon, Luo, Schlegel, Greene, & Goldenberg, 2000, Exp. 2;Smith, Ward, Tindell, Sifonis, & Wilkenfeld, 2000) and to a lesser extent in children (Brainerd & Reyna, 2007;Chiang & Chiu, 2006;Howe, 2006a;Seamon et al, 2000, Exp. 1).…”