Young children's learning of relational categories: multiple comparisons and their cognitive constraints.

ABSTRACT: Relational categories are notoriously difficult to learn because they are not defined by intrinsic stable properties. We studied the impact of comparisons on relational concept learning with a novel word learning task in 42-month-old children. Capitalizing on Gentner et al. (2011), two, three or four pairs of stimuli were introduced with a novel relational word. In a given trial, the set of pairs was composed of either close or far pairs (e.g., close pair: knife1-watermelon, knife2-orange, knife3-slice of bread and knife4-meat; far pair: ax-evergreen tree, saw-log, cutter-cardboard, and knife-slice of bread, for the "cutter for" relation). Close pairs (2 vs. 3 vs. 4 pairs) led to random generalizations whereas comparisons with far pairs gave the expected relational generalization. The 3 pa

SUBMITTER: Thibaut JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4436577 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature