| Long, Wu, Li et al. (2006) found that 3-year-olds could not mainly make knowledge-based induction when they faced the conflicting of perceptual and conceptual category. In prepared experiment, 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds all make induction based on knowledge, but it had no significant differences between similarity-based induction and knowledge-based induction in 3 -year-olds, by using similar method with Long et al's., which had replicated their findings. In experiment 1, a distraction was added in each test. 3-year-olds could ignore the distraction, which indicated that 3-year-olds were not just guessing in tasks. In experiment 2, 3-year-olds' knowledge of conceptual categorization on the items used in experiment 1 was tested. The data showed 3-year-olds could make knowledge-based categorization and indicated that lacking knowledge could not explain why 3-year-olds could not mainly make knowledge-based induction in experiment 1. However, children face the conflicting of perceptual and conceptual comparison. In experiment 3, conceptual comparison items were designed to look like target which would eliminate the degree of confliction. The data showed that 3-year-olds could not also mainly make knowledge-based induction. The structure of category may be the reason for children's performance. Hence, in experiment 4, target and conceptual comparison items were designed to belong to same basic-level category, the results showed 3-year-olds could infer that target and conceptual comparison item would share same properties. Besides, the previous studies were only one premise. In experiment 5, two targets were provided. The results showed 3-year-olds could also make knowledge-based induction, although target and comparison items belong to different basic-level categories. These results showed 3-year-olds could make knowledge-based induction in some conditions, which challenge the view that young children's induction based-on perceptual information.
|
PDF Full Text Request