Developmental changes in concept utilization among normal and retarded children.

Examined the concepts employed by 100 normal children in kindergarten-Grade 4 (Study 1), and by 48 retarded vs 48 normal children matched for mental ages ranging from 5 to 11 yrs (Study 2). Ss were required to select pairs of pictures from a large array of pictures depicting common objects and to explain the basis for their pairing responses. Factor analysis of the conceptual responses of normal Ss revealed factors for abstraction (nominal and functional concepts as opposed to perceptible concepts) and complimentarity ("go together" responses as opposed to similarity responses). Retarded Ss differed from normals primarily in their use of more complimentary and fewer similarity concepts. The developmental course of concept utilization for normals was characterized as a change from perceptible to nominal and functional concepts, while that for retarded Ss was characterized as a change from complimentary to similarity concepts. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children's preference for complementary pairs: Evidence against a shift to a taxonomic preference.

Examined the development of conceptual preference for complementary and taxonomic relationships among 8 groups of 12 children (aged 3 yrs to 15 yrs 6 mo). The triads procedure was used with picture pairings familiar to the youngest age group. Data reveal a preference for complementary pairing for all age groups. These preferences were independent of Ss' ability to explain taxonomic relationships and of the relative attractiveness of the pictures, as determined by ratings of a 2nd sample of 96 children. Studies that have shown a shift from a complementary to a taxonomic conceptual preference in the early school years are reviewed, and the utility of conceptualizing the increased use of taxonomic organization with age as a shift in preference is questioned. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concepts and conceptual structure.

Research and theory on categorization and conceptual structure have recently undergone two major shifts. The first shift is from the assumption that concepts have defining properties (the classical view) to the idea that concept representations may be based on properties that are only characteristic or typical of category examples (the probabilistic view). Both the probabilistic view and the classical view assume that categorization is driven by similarity relations. A major problem with describing category structure in terms of similarity is that the notion of similarity is too unconstrained to give an account of conceptual coherence. The second major shift is from the idea that concepts are organized around theories. In this article, the evidence and rationale associated with these shifts are described, and one means of integrating similarity-based and theory-driven categorization is outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Challenging the notion of a thematic preference in young children.

Many researchers have argued that early cognitive development is characterized by a conceptual preference for thematic over taxonomic relations. However, more recent research indicates that infants and toddlers may not favor thematic relations. To resolve this discrepancy, the conceptual preferences of children ranging from 2 to 4 years of age were examined, using a forced-choice task including a target (e.g., a carrot), a thematic alternative (e.g., a rabbit), and a taxonomic alternative (e.g., a tomato). The effects of age, experimenter's instructions, hierarchical level (basic vs. superordinate), and stimulus medium (pictures vs. objects) were examined systematically. Children revealed no pervasive preference for either thematic or taxonomic relations. This challenges the notion of a developmental shift in conceptual preferences and suggests a more continuous trajectory in early conceptual development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How pronutrition television programming affects children's dietary habits.

Investigated the effects of pro-nutrition TV programming on kindergarten-age children's nutritional knowledge, food preferences, and eating habits using a hierarchy of effects model as a conceptual basis. This model presents 4 levels (recall, information, preference, and behavior) that may be affected by pro-nutrition food advertisements and are sequenced by degree of complexity. A pretest–posttest control-group design was used. 59 children from 6 kindergarten classes (average age 6.2 yrs) were exposed to a series of 10 20-min videotapes over 10 class days. The videotapes were compiled from popular children's programming and public service announcements with themes stressing healthy eating habits and nutritional concepts. 50 control Ss did not view the tapes. Effects were measured using recall, information, preference, and behavioral assessments (i.e., the Behavioral Eating Test and the Pretend Eating Test). Significant results were obtained on the recall and information measures only, indicating that Ss attended to the TV programming and learned the nutrition concepts that were presented in the tapes but failed to change in terms of preference or consumption. Results are discussed in terms of their suggested support for the hierarchy-of-effects model and the implications for further research regarding the effects of pro-nutritional TV programming. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Systemic candidiasis in the newborn. Report of 3 cases

In two related studies, a pictorial sorting task served as the means of measuring conceptual development in LD and normal boys. The studies found no differences in the bases on which groups were formed (perceptible attributes, function, or nominal class membership) or in the manner in which groups were structured (thematically, in complexive groups or superordinate groups). Furthermore, parallel developmental trends were found in both LD and normal subjects groups. These findings are not consistent with early studies of concept formation in brain-damaged subjects, most of whom were retarded. Subjects in the present studies were selected on the basis of clinical diagnosis of LD and average IQ. The findings of the present studies suggest that generalizations about conceptual abilities of LD children of normal intelligence should not be based on early studies of the effects of brain damage.     

The role of theories in conceptual coherence.

In order to answer the question of what makes a concept coherent (what makes its members form a comprehensible class), accounts based on similarity, features correlations, and various theories of categorization are reviewed. In general, the similarity-based approach is seen to require a minimum of conceptual organization and relations, whereas the theory-based approach emphasizes both. It is concluded that each theory provides an inadequate account of conceptual coherence (or no account at all), because none provides enough constraints on possible concepts. The authors propose that concepts are coherent to the extent that they fit people's background knowledge or naive theories about the world. These theories help to relate the concepts in a domain and to structure the attributes that are internal to a concept. Evidence of the influence of theories on various conceptual tasks is presented, and the possible importance of theories in cognitive development is discussed. (109 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Choosing category or complementary relations: prior tendencies modulate instructional effects

Concepts in semantic memory are associated with other categorically (e.g., dog-horse) and complementarily (e.g., dog-bone) related concepts. Although complementary relations produce more robust priming (e.g., Lupker, 1984), categorical responding is more common in preference tasks where participants choose directly between categorical and complementary relations (e.g., Smiley & Brown, 1979). Three experiments examined the effects of instructions and individual differences on adult preferences. Experiment 1 demonstrated that category preferences were infrequent, and that "most similar" instructions produced modestly more category responses than "goes together" instructions. In Experiments 2 and 3, emphasizing key words enhanced the instructional effect, and "similar" instructions produced especially large increases in category preferences for participants predisposed to categorical relationships. These preference experiments demonstrate that complementary advantages are similar to those for priming, and that instructions and prior tendencies can have subtle influences on semantic memory.     

Scope of linguistic influence: Does a classifier system alter object concepts?

Whether and to what extent conceptual structure is universal is of great importance for understanding the nature of human concepts. Two major factors that might affect concepts are language and culture. The authors investigated whether these 2 factors affect concepts of everyday objects in any significant ways. Specifically, they tested (a) whether the system of grammatical categorization by classifiers influenced the conceptual structure of speakers of classifier languages, and (b) whether Westerners organized object concepts around taxonomic relations whereas Easterners organized them around thematic relations, as proposed by R. E. Nisbett (2003). The relative importance of 3 types of relations--taxonomic, thematic, and classifier--for Chinese and German speakers was tested using a range of tasks, including categorization, similarity judgment, property induction, and fast-speed word-picture matching. Some support for linguistic relativity as well as for the cultural-specific cognition proposal was found in some tasks, but these effects were miniscule compared with the importance of taxonomic and thematic relations for both language-culture groups. The authors conclude that the global structure of everyday object concepts is strikingly similar across different cultures and languages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tenacious goal pursuit and flexible goal adjustment: Explication and age-related analysis of assimilative and accommodative strategies of coping.

Crises and critical life transitions activate 2 distinct but complementary modes of coping, (a) transforming developmental circumstances in accordance with personal preferences ( assimilative tendency ) and (b) adjusting personal preferences to situational constraints ( accommodative tendency ). Assimilative and accommodative tendencies were measured by a questionnaire comprising 2 independent scales (Tenacious Goal Pursuit and Flexible Goal Adjustment). Both scales predict high life satisfaction and low depression and are positively related to generalized internal control beliefs. The scales evinced an opposite relation to age: Cross-sectional analyses on a sample of 890 Ss in the age range from 34 to 63 years revealed a gradual shift from an assimilative to an accommodative mode of coping. Implications for theories of depression and successful aging are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Body odour preferences in men and women: do they aim for specific MHC combinations or simply heterozygosity?

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is an immunologically important group of genes that appears to be under natural as well as sexual selection. Several hypotheses suggest that certain MHC-allele combinations (usually heterozygous ones) are superior under selective pressure by pathogens. This could influence mate choice in a way that preferences function to create MHC-heterozygous offspring, or that they function to create specific allele combinations that are beneficial under the current environmental conditions through their complementary or epistatic effects. To test these hypotheses, we asked 121 men and women to score the odours of six T-shirts, worn by two women and four men. Their scorings of pleasantness correlated negatively with the degree of MHC similarity between smeller and T-shirt-wearer in men and women who were not using the contraceptive pill (but not in Pill-users). Depending on the T-shirt-wearer, the amount of variance in the scorings of odour pleasantness that was explained by the degree of MHC similarity (r2) varied between nearly 0 and 23%. There was no apparent effect of gender in this correlation: the highest r2 was actually reached with one of the male odours sniffed by male smellers. Men and women who were reminded of their own mate/ex-mate when sniffing a T-shirt had significantly fewer MHC-alleles in common with this T-shirt-wearer than expected by chance. This suggests that the MHC or linked genes influence human mate choice. We found no significant effect when we tested for an influence of the MHC on odour preferences after the degree of similarity between T-shirt-wearer and smeller was statistically controlled for. This suggests that in our study populations the MHC influences body odour preferences mainly, if not exclusively, by the degree of similarity or dissimilarity. The observed preferences would increase heterozygosity in the progeny. They do not seem to aim for more specific MHC combinations.     

Similarity to a model and self-evaluation.

"An adult model was presented to groups of grade school children as being either highly similar or of little similarity to the children in background and other attributes. To half of the groups he described himself as being high in abilities necessary for deep-sea diving. To the other half he described himself as being deficient in these abilities. He also described a number of his preferences relevant to deep-sea diving." Ss evaluated themselves on these abilities before and after being exposed to the adult, and expressed their own preferences regarding diving. Ss tended to agree with the preferences of the diver when he was perceived as being similar to themselves. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4FC57B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stripes do not a zebra make, or do they? Conceptual and perceptual information in inductive inference.

Four-year-olds' and adults' inferences based on shared conceptual properties, category labels, and perceptual information were assessed in 4 experiments. Stimuli included novel animals (Studies 1, 3, and 4) and familiar animals (Study 2). Experiments suggest that both category membership information and similarity (in the form of conceptual information and perceptually provided information) affect inferences. Furthermore, conceptual attribute information and category membership information were used differently by adults but not by children. It is concluded that the inferential behavior of children and adults is influenced by perceptual information, conceptual attribute information, and category membership information, as well as by hypotheses about how these kinds of information relate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A theory-based approach to teaching young children about health: A recipe for understanding.

The theory–theory account of conceptual development posits that children's concepts are integrated into theories. Concept-learning studies have documented the central role that theories play in children's learning of experimenter-defined categories but have yet to extensively examine complex, real-world concepts, such as health. The present study examined whether providing young children with coherent and causally related information in a theory-based lesson would facilitate their learning about the concept of health. This study used a pretest/lesson/posttest design, plus a 5-month follow-up. Children were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: theory (i.e., 20 children received a theory-based lesson), nontheory (i.e., 20 children received a nontheory-based lesson), and control (i.e., 20 children received no lesson). Overall, the results showed that children in the theory condition had a more accurate conception of health than children in the nontheory and control conditions, suggesting the importance of theories in children's learning of complex, real-world concepts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of cue salience in the development of time concepts: Duration comparisons in young children.

It has been claimed that in the course of developing time concepts, young children go through a stage in which they conceptualize duration as being dependent on endings of events rather than on beginnings and endings. This conceptual deficit was proposed to account for children's greater success in comparing durations that differ in their endings than durations that differ in their beginnings. The present study analyzes the possibility that this phenomenon may be attributed mainly to perceptual salience rather than to conceptual deficit. 360 children from nursery school, kindergarten, and 1st grade were asked to compare the burning times of 2 lights that started and/or ended simultaneously. The role of attention to beginning vs end points in duration judgment was investigated by manipulating beginning- vs end-point salience via systematic variations of sequence of the problems presented. Correct comparisons of duration problems were found to be a function of the relative salience of beginning vs end points. Results support the salience attention model rather than the conceptual deficit account of duration judgments of young children. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the origins of the conceptual system.

Contrary to the conventional view of infancy as a sensorimotor period without conceptual thought, research over the past 20 years has shown that preverbal infants are capable of at least 3 conceptual functions: forming concepts with which to interpret the world, recall of the past, and engaging in conceptual generalization. Research is described indicating that the 1st concepts tend to be global in scope, such as animal or container, and that the course of conceptual development in the first 2 years is largely one of differentiating global concepts into more detailed concepts, such as dog or cup. A theory of how the 1st global concepts are formed from spatial information is briefly presented, including (a) a mechanism that redescribes spatial information into simpler but accessible form and (b) the primitives it uses for this purpose. Finally, the way concepts become more complex by means of language and analogical extension to nonspatial information is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations among word meanings in early lexical development.

When deriving the meanings of individual words, children must also discern the relations among words. To ascertain how children interpret such relations, 12 2-yr-olds were taught novel count nouns for related but unfamiliar objects. Although the relations among words were never specified, children's interpretation of the relations was mediated by the similarity of the objects. For dissimilar objects, children interpreted the words as mutually exclusive. For more similar objects, children's performance was consistent with a hierarchical interpretation of meaning. Thus, by 2 yrs of age, children have the conceptual and lexical abilities necessary for the establishment of hierarchical inclusion relations. The significance of this finding for theories of lexical and conceptual development is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferring interpersonal traits from behavior: Act prototypicality versus conceptual similarity of trait concepts.

Investigates 2 models of the cognitive process underlying trait ratings; the trait-to-trait process states that trait inferences are guided by the conceptual similarity among traits. Ss were presented with 6 fictitious persons. Each was described by acts referring to 1 of 6 traits. Ss rated the targets on interpersonal trait terms. If trait ratings are gathered immediately after the presentation of behavioral information about a single target (Study 1), these ratings correspond closely to the prototypicality ratings of the acts on the trait concepts (behavior-to-trait process). However, if Ss have to keep the behavioral information about several targets in memory (Study 2), the trait ratings are guided by the conceptual relations among the concepts under study (trait-to-trait process). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Similarity of outcomes, interdependence, and conflict in dating relationships.

Dating couples (N?=?59) participated in a longitudinal study of hypotheses derived from interdependence theory. Whether each partner's activity preferences and similarity of preference, weighted by liking, would predict joint activity participation was examined. Preferences explained participation better than similarity, and own preferences predicted better than other's preferences. We hypothesized that conflict would increase with the strength of preferences but would decrease with similarity. The hypothesis concerning similarity was confirmed for some activities. Participation, similarity, and conflict explained relationship satisfaction and stability, but participation predicted better for men, whereas conflict and similarity predicted better for women. The findings support the theory but suggest that interdependence problems vary by activity type and gender. Three patterns are discussed: turn taking, unresolved competition, and cooperation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)