Contribution of the priming paradigm to the understanding of the conceptual developmental shift from 5 to 9 years of age.
We conducted three experiments to study the role of instrumental (e.g. knife-bread) and categorical (e.g. cake-bread) relations in the development of conceptual organization with a priming paradigm, by varying the nature of the task (naming--Experiment 1--or categorical decision--Experiments 2 and 3). The participants were 5-, 7- and 9-year-old children and adults. The results showed that on both types of task, adults and 9-year-old children presented instrumental and categorical priming effects, whereas 5-year-old children presented mainly instrumental priming effects, with categorical effects remaining marginal. Moreover, the magnitude of the instrumental priming effects decreased with age. Finally, the priming effects observed for 7-year-old children depended on the task, especially for the categorical effects. The theoretical implications of these results for our understanding of conceptual reorganization from 5 to 9 years of age are discussed.
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland. Sandrine.Perraudin@pse.unige.ch
Sandrine
S
Perraudin
Pierre
P
Mounoud
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult