Conceptual organization at 6 and 8 years of age: evidence from the semantic priming of object decisions.

Full Abstract

PURPOSE:
The purpose of this study was to examine children's knowledge of semantic relations.

METHOD:
In Experiment 1, the 6-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults participated in an object decision task. Participants in the primed group made object decisions in response to primes that were related taxonomically, thematically, or perceptually to the target objects. Those in the unprimed group made decisions about the same stimuli without the benefit of primes. In Experiment 2, the children in the primed group explained the taxonomic and thematic relations between the prime-target pairs used in Experiment 1.

RESULTS:
In Experiment 1, the strength of semantic relations did not vary with type or age, as taxonomic priming was as strong as thematic priming and the degree of priming did not reliably differentiate the 3 age groups. Differential priming effects between taxonomic and perceptual conditions, the former hastening and the latter slowing responses, suggested that the relation binding object concepts into taxonomies was not reducible to common physical features. In Experiment 2, the 6-year-olds had more difficulty describing taxonomic than thematic relations, whereas the 8-year-olds described both with ease.

CONCLUSIONS:
Contrary to the shift hypothesis, taxonomic and thematic relationsstructure concepts in children as young as 6 and into adulthood. In accord with the performance hypothesis, 6-year-olds' representations of taxonomic relations are fragile and vulnerable to high task demands.

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Author information

Author/s: Hashimoto, Naomi (N); McGregor, Karla K (KK); Graham, Anne (A);

Affiliation: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.

Grants: 2 R01 DC003698-06 (Agency:NIDCD NIH HHS) ; R01 DC003698-06 (Agency:NIDCD NIH HHS) ; R29 DC 03698 (Agency:NIDCD NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Journal: Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR (J Speech Lang Hear Res), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Feb; vol 50 (issue 1) : pp 161-76

Dates: Created 2007/03/08; Completed 2007/05/08; Revised 2008/11/20;

PMID: 17344557, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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