The Dynamics of Preschoolers' Categorization Choices

Deák, Gedeon O.; Bauer, Patricia J.

doi:10.2307/1131859

Cited by 77 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(50 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In our research, these constraints were related to the nature of the sensory modality. Our results extend the Wndings of previous work in which the inXuence of task parameters (e.g., in terms of instruction or learning [Deák & Bauer, 1996]), or of more complex factors (e.g., expertise, domainbased knowledge [Johnson & Mervis, 1997]), has been demonstrated.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Categorization by schema relations and perceptual similarity in 5-year-olds and adults: A study in vision and in audition

Berger

Donnadieu

2006

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Categorization by schema relations and perceptual similarity in 5-year-olds and adults: A study in vision and in audition

Berger

Donnadieu

2006

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Some of the differences across studies investigating children's appreciation of essentialism are undoubtedly attributable to tasks that tap into different aspects of children's biological understanding. This illustrates an obvious, but all too frequently ignored, point that conceptual understanding of any domain is not an all-or-none phenomenon but rather is dependent on several interacting components, including knowledge, context, and task demands (Deak & Bauer, 1996;Fischer & Bidell, 1991). One of the goals of understanding children's conceptual development is to identify the different conditions in which that knowledge is displayed.…”

Section: The Development Of Essences In Children's Biological Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental changes in children's inductive inferences for biological concepts: implications for the development of essentialist beliefs

Farrar

Boyer-Pennington²

2010

Infant and Child Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examined developmental changes in children's inductive inferences about biological concepts as a function of knowledge of properties and concepts. Specifically, 4-to 5-year-olds and 9-to 10-year-olds were taught either familiar or unfamiliar internal, external, or functional properties about known and unknown target animals. Children were asked to infer whether each of four probes, varying in categorical and perceptual similarity to the target, also shared that property. Overall, children made more inferences for known concepts and familiar properties. Older children were more likely to use categorical than perceptual information when making inferences about internal and functional properties of known concepts; however, younger children, in general, made no distinction for property type, and they weighted categorical and perceptual information similarly. Both age groups utilized appearance when making inferences about external properties. Results are discussed in terms of developmental changes in children's appreciation of essentialism.

show abstract

“…Additionally, in the absence of exemplar labels preschool children tend to use a thematic approach (Gelman and Markmam 1987); therefore, naming the exemplars for the children should encourage the use of a thematic approach to categorization. Further, Deak and Bauer (1996) demonstrated that the use of labels led to improved target selection over no-label conditions, and also suggested that children use semantic context to constrain their categorical decisions. The current study incorporated these observations by providing a semantic context that would further encourage the use of a thematic categorization strategy, by offering the children colorful drawings of verbally labeled environments into which they were asked to categorize objects.…”

Section: Object Categorizationmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…These studies indicate that the presence of a dog serves as both a source of motivation and a highly salient stimulus for children, allowing them to better restrict their attention to the demands of a task. Deak and Bauer (1996) suggest, among other things, that goal directedness or specificity of a categorization task will affect children's ability to use pertinent information to make decisions. We suggest that having a dog present may provide children with this goal directedness, allowing them to focus on the demands of the task.…”

Section: Human-animal Interactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preschoolers Categorize Animate Objects Better in the Presence of a Dog

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The current study was designed to examine whether preschool children categorize picture stimuli differentially in the presence of a real dog compared with a stuffed dog or a human. Seventeen preschool children (age in months; M = 51.67, SD = 8.06), both Typical and those with a developmental delay ("Identified"), were asked to categorize Animate and Inanimate objects into two environments (Farm and Ocean) in each of three Collaborator conditions (Real Dog, Stuffed Dog, and Human). As predicted, there was a main effect of animation: the children more accurately categorized Animate (e.g., cow) exemplars than Inanimate ones (e.g., tractor). Additionally, the Animation variable interacted with Collaborator, such that in the presence of the real dog the impact of animation was significant, but this effect was not significant in the presence of the stuffed dog or human. This result indicates that the presence of the real dog served as a highly salient stimulus which encouraged the children to focus more of their attention on other animate objects in the list. This result provides additional evidence that the presence of a dog helps preschool children to restrict their attention to the demands of the task. This is a new and interesting finding that indicates that the presence of a real dog does have an impact on cognitive task performance.

show abstract

The Dynamics of Preschoolers' Categorization Choices

Cited by 77 publications

References 27 publications

Categorization by schema relations and perceptual similarity in 5-year-olds and adults: A study in vision and in audition

Categorization by schema relations and perceptual similarity in 5-year-olds and adults: A study in vision and in audition

Developmental changes in children's inductive inferences for biological concepts: implications for the development of essentialist beliefs

Preschoolers Categorize Animate Objects Better in the Presence of a Dog

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About