Elaine Funnell (2005) Conceptions of objects across categories: Childhood patterns resemble those of adults.. British Journal of Psychology, 96 (). pp. 1–19. ISSN 0007-1269
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Studies of category-specific disorders have suggested that categories of living and non-living things vary in the properties that are most salient to recognition. Studies of the object features generated by normal adults have also revealed different patterns of responses to different categories. These adult patterns are likely to originate in childhood, but there are few reports of children’s verbal conceptions of objects and none at present of objects from different categories. This paper investigates the development of object conceptions, in large group of children, aged 3years 7months to 11years 6 months, in response to ‘What is a - ?” questions directed to seventy-two objects, selected from two categories of Living Things (animals and fruit/vegetables) and two categories of Artefacts (implements and vehicles). Proportions of perceptual-to-functional features provided by the children to living and non-living things varied with the range of features defined as functions, just as studies of adults have found. Apart from the distribution of superordinate responses, which were significantly more salient to living than to non-living categories, no other property separated the two categories. Only the category of implements could be distinguished from the other categories on the basis of the features generated. It is argued that the perceptual-functional of theory of category-specific disorders receives little support from this study, but that in general the distribution of features generated by young children is similar that produced by normal adults.
This is a Draft version This version's date is: 02/2005 This item is peer reviewed
https://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/988990d3-b2dd-4eb4-a93d-30174e36c969/1/
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(C) 2005 British Psychological Society, whose permission to mount this version for private study and research is acknowledged. The repository version is the author's final draft.
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