title: Making a silk purse out of two sow's ears: young children's use of comparison in category learning.
abstract: Comparison mechanisms have been implicated in the development of abstract, relational thought, including object categorization. D. Gentner and L. L. Namy (1999) found that comparing 2 perceptually similar category members yielded taxonomic categorization, whereas viewing a single member of the target category elicited shallower perceptual responding. The present experiments tested 2 predictions that follow from Gentner and Namy's (1999) model: (a) Comparison facilitates categorization only when the targets to be compared share relational commonalities, and (b) providing common labels for targets invites comparison, whereas providing conflicting labels deters it. Four-year-olds participated in a forced-choice task. They viewed 2 perceptually similar target objects and were asked to "find another one." Results suggest an important role for comparison in lexical and conceptual development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. Lnamy@emory.edu
authors.forename: Laura L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Namy
authors.forename: Dedre
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gentner
mesh_terms: D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002965:Classification; D003210:Concept Formation; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual