title: When humans become animals: Development of the animal category in early childhood.
abstract: The current study examines 3- and 5-year-olds' representation of the concept we label 'animal' and its two nested concepts -animal(contrastive) (including only non-human animals) and animal(inclusive) (including both humans and non-human animals). Building upon evidence that naming promotes object categorization, we introduced a novel noun for two distinct objects, and analyzed children's patterns of extension. In Experiment 1, children heard a novel noun in conjunction with two non-human animals (dog, bird). Here, both 3- and 5-year-olds readily accessed animal(contrastive) and extended the noun systematically to other (previously un-named) non-human animals. In Experiment 2, children heard a novel noun in conjunction with a human and non-human animal. Here, 5-year-olds (but not 3-year-olds) accessed animal(inclusive) and extended the noun systematically to humans and non-human animals. These results underscore the developmental challenge facing young children as they identify the scope of the fundamental biological term 'animal' and its corresponding, nested concept(s).
authors.affiliation: University of Texas at Austin, Department of Psychology, 1 University Station A8000, Austin, TX 78712-0187, United States. herrmann@psy.utexas.edu
authors.forename: Patricia A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Herrmann
authors.forename: Douglas L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Medin
authors.forename: Sandra R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Waxman
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001717:Birds; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D004285:Dogs; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007802:Language; D007804:Language Development; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D010944:Plants