title: Was it designed to do that? Children's focus on intended function in their conceptualization of artifacts.
abstract: Do young children who seek the conceptual kind of an artifact weigh the plausibility that a current function constitutes the function intended by the object designer? Three- and four-year-olds were encouraged to question adults about novel artifacts. After inquiring about what an object was, some children were shown a function that plausibly accounted for the structural features of the object; others were shown a possible, but implausible function. Children given implausible functions were less satisfied with these responses than those given plausible functions, as shown by their more persistent attempts to ask follow-up questions about function. Accordingly, preschoolers appear to take into account matters of intentional design when assigning artifacts to conceptual kinds.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081, USA.
authors.forename: Yvonne M
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Asher
authors.forename: Deborah G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Kemler Nelson
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012660:Semantics