Inductive Selectivity in Children’s Cross‐Classified Concepts

Abstract

Cross-classified items pose an interesting challenge to children’s induction since these items belong to many different categories, each of which may serve as a basis for a different type of inference. Inductive selectivity is the ability to appropriately make different types of inferences about a single cross-classifiable item based on its different category memberships. This research includes five experiments that examine the development of inductive selectivity in 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (N = 272). Overall, the results show that by age 4 years, children have inductive selectivity with taxonomic and script categories. That is, children use taxonomic categories to make biochemical inferences about an item whereas children use script categories to make situational inferences about an item.

A ladybug bear can fly and climb trees: Children prefer conjunctions of labels and properties for cross‐classifiable toys

“…This overall lack of property attribution preference in 3-year-olds is dissimilar to what was found in Studies 1 and 2, suggesting that a preference for dual properties for experimental toys versus control toys may not develop until about age 4 years. This finding with 3-year-olds dovetails with previous findings showing that 3-year-olds have trouble selectively making inductive inferences with items that could be cross-classified sequentially on different trials (Nguyen, 2012).…”

“…Thus, items belong to only one richly structured category that can be used as a basis for induction. Although past studies have documented that children can selectively use categories for inferences about one property at a time (e.g., Kalish & Gelman, 1992;Nguyen, 2012), to the best of our knowledge, the present findings are the first to show that 4-and 5-year-old children prefer to combine properties across two different categories simultaneously for cross-classifiable items. That is, 4-and 5-year-olds are using two richly structured categories at the same time as a basis for attributing properties to cross-classifiable toys.…”

“…Study 4 included a younger age group, namely, 3-year-olds, by using a version of the task that combines the experimental toy trials from Study 1 with the control toy trials from Study 2. Given that children do not have a strong ability for simultaneous cross-classification until age 4 years (e.g., Nguyen, 2007Nguyen, , 2012Nguyen & Gelman, 2012;Nguyen & Murphy, 2003), we predicted that 3-year-olds would not consistently favour the joint labels and dual properties for experimental versus control toys.…”

“…Crucially, cross-classification is determined by children's accuracy on both trials (see Nguyen & Girgis, 2014). Studies have revealed that children have a strong ability for cross-classification by age 4 years (e.g., Nguyen, 2007Nguyen, , 2012Nguyen & Gelman, 2012;Nguyen & Murphy, 2003).…”

“…In Study 3, participants were tested on a modified version of the labelling and property attribution task involving both experimental and control toys. Given children's ability for simultaneous cross-classification by age 4 years (e.g., Nguyen, 2007Nguyen, , 2012Nguyen & Gelman, 2012;Nguyen & Murphy, 2003), we were especially interested in revealing children's preferences for label and property conjunctions for cross-classifiable toys. In examining children's preferences, it was critical to begin by including only age groups that already have a strong ability to represent the two categories of a cross-classifiable toy in the first place.…”