Linguistic structure and transposition.
Transfer of a learned discrimination along the size dimension was studied in groups of American and African tribal children. The language spoken by the African children contains an asymmetry in the expression of size comparisons that is not present in English. Contrary to theories of linguistic mediation of choice behavior, transfer choices were not related to the differing linguistic patterns; however, initial choices and post-test descriptions of choices were so related.
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D006801:Humans; D007988:Liberia; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011594:Psychometrics; D012858:Size Perception; D014163:Transfer, Psychology; D014481:United States