Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:50:59.011Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An appearance-function shift in children's object naming*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

William E. Merriman ,
Paul D. Scott  and
John Marazita
William E. Merriman*
Affiliation:
Kent State University
Paul D. Scott
Affiliation:
Emory University
John Marazita
Affiliation:
Kent State University
*
Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The relative importance of appearance and potential function in children's object naming was examined. Potential function is an object capability that may not be currently realized (e.g. an empty mug has the potential to hold coffee). In Study 1, sixteen children from each of three age groups (3;8, 4;8, and 6;1) were taught novel names for unfamiliar objects; they then had to decide whether these applied to items that resembled the training objects in either appearance or potential function. The youngsters were also shown deceptive objects (e.g., an eraser that looked like a pencil) and had to choose between familiar appearance and function names for them (e.g., pencil or eraser). The frequency of function-based responding in both tasks increased with age. In Study 2, the name training procedure was revised so that equal emphasis was given to both apparent and functional features. The main results of the first study were replicated. Neither study obtained evidence of a strong relation between the appearance—function shift and increased under-standing of the appearance—reality distinction.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 1993 , pp. 101 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

This work was supported by a FIRST award (R29 HD25958) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the first author, and by a Research Experiences for Undergraduates grant (89–00571) from the National Science Foundation to the second author. The assistance of Laura Augustajtis, Jennifer Engar, Jessica Howdysell, Lorna Jarvis and Angela Lavorata was greatly appreciated. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their very instructive comments. ‘In all ways acknowledge Him …’ (Prov.3:6).

References

REFERENCES

Andersen, E. S. (1975). Cups and glasses: learning that boundaries are vague. Journal of Child Language 2, 79–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, A. L. H. & Prawat, R. S. (1983). When is a cup not a cup? A further examination of form and function in children's labeling responses. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 29, 375–85.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1973). What's in a word? On the child's acquisition of semantics in his first langauge. In Moore, T. E. (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Corrigan, R. & Schommer, M. (1984). Form versus function revisited: the role of social input and memory factors. Child Development 55, 1721–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eriksson, M. (1989). Development of decontextualization in object naming. Cognitive Development 4, 389–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flavell, J. H. (1986). The development of children's knowledge about the appearance—reality distinction. American Psychologist 41, 418–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flavell, J. H., Flavell, E. R. & Green, F. L. (1983). Development of the appearance-reality distinction. Cognitive Psychology 15, 95–120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flavell, J. H., Green, F. L. & Flavell, E. R. (1986). Development of knowledge about the appearance-reality distinction. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 51, 1, Serial No. 212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flavell, J. H., Green, F. L. & Flavell, E. R. (1989). Young children's ability to differentiate appearance-reality and level 2 perspectives in the tactile modality. Child Development 60, 201–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gentner, D. (1978). What looks like a jiggy but acts like a zimbo? A study of early word meaning using artificial objects. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 15, 1–6.Google Scholar
Keil, F. C. (1989). Concepts, kind, and cognitive development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1973). The boundaries of words and their meanings. In Bailey, C.-J. N. & Shuy, R. (eds), New ways of analyzing variation in English. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1987). The competition model. In MacWhinney, B. (ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Merriman, W. E. (1986). How children learn the reference of concrete nouns: critique of current hypotheses. In Kuczaj, S. A. II, & Barrett, M. D. (eds), The development of word meaning. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Mervis, C. B. (1987). Child-basic object categories and early lexical development. In Neisser, U. (ed.), Concepts and conceptual development: ecological and intellectual factors in categorization. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. (1973). Some evidence for the cognitive primacy of categorization and its functional basis. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 19, 21–39.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. (1974). Concept, word, and sentence: interrelations in acquisition and development. Psychological Review 81, 267–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, K. (1983). Concepts, words, and experiments: comment on ‘When is a cup not a cup?’ by A. L. H. Anderson & R. S. Prawat. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 29, 387–94.Google Scholar
Prawat, R. S. & Wildfong, S. (1980). The influence of functional context on children's labelling responses. Child Development 51, 1057–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomikawa, S. A. & Dodd, D. H. (1980). Early word meanings: perceptually or functionally based? Child Development 51, 1103–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed