PubMed Health⌕ Search

PubMed · 2702869

What makes a vibble a vibble? A developmental study of category generalization.

Abstract

Young children appear to know when a novel label for a novel object is a common noun. The present study was concerned with the properties of a named object that children assume to be true of other members of the category that is specified by such a noun. Preschoolers, second graders, and college students were shown drawings of objects and given nonsense labels for those objects. They then viewed other objects that varied from the labeled ones along 4 particular attributes and were asked to decide if those other objects should also receive the same label. Preschoolers focused mostly on single attributes in making category decisions, and their choices of attributes were evenly distributed among the 4 types. Older individuals primarily exhibited multiple attribute rules. The results are discussed in terms of developmental differences in the modes of processing that are used and in the types of knowledge that are brought to bear on the word learning situation.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

T B Ward, E Vela, M L Peery, S N Lewis, N K Bauer, K A Klint. 1989. What makes a vibble a vibble? A developmental study of category generalization.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2702869/

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

A low glycaemic index breakfast cereal preferentially prevents children's cognitive performance from declining throughout the morning.

This study investigated whether the glycaemic index (GI) of breakfast cereal differentially affects children's attention and memory. Using a balanced cross-over design, on two consecutive mornings 64 children aged 6-11 years were given a high GI cereal and a low GI cereal in a counterbalanced order. They performed a series of computerised tests of attention and memory, once prior to breakfast and three times following breakfast at hourly intervals. The results indicate that children's performance declines throughout the morning and that this decline can be significantly reduced following the intake of a low GI cereal as compared with a high GI cereal on measures of accuracy of attention (M=-6.742 and -13.510, respectively, p<0.05) and secondary memory (M=-30.675 and -47.183, respectively, p<0.05).

Attention↗

Inhibitory control test is a simple method to diagnose minimal hepatic encephalopathy and predict development of overt hepatic encephalopathy.

OBJECTIVES: To compare inhibitory control test (ICT), a simple/rapid test of attention, to a standard psychometric battery (SPT) to diagnose minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) and predict development of overt hepatic encephalopathy (OHE) in cirrhotic patients. METHODS: Fifty nonalcoholic cirrhotics and 50 age/educational-status-matched controls were given ICT and SPT in the same sitting. Performance impaired beyond two standard deviations of controls was considered MHE in cirrhotics. ICT results (lure/target response and lures/person) were compared between controls and cirrhotics and within cirrhotics with/without MHE. Receiver-operating characteristic analysis was used to study ICT for MHE diagnosis. Twenty subjects were administered SPT and ICT twice to assess test-retest reliability. All cirrhotics were followed routinely for the development of OHE. RESULTS: Cirrhotics performed worse than controls on SPT and ICT. Using SPT, 39 cirrhotics had MHE. ICT was administered faster than SPT (15 vs 37 min). Cirrhotics with MHE had significantly higher lure (28%vs 3%) and lower target response (91%vs 96%) compared with those without MHE. Lure/person >5 had 90% sensitivity/specificity for MHE diagnosis. AUC for receiver-operating characteristic for lures alone was 95.8%. Lure and target responses were highly correlated (r= 0.9) between sessions showing high test-retest reliability. Five (10%) patients developed OHE on f/u of 26 +/- 10 months; all five had been diagnosed with MHE using ICT and SPT. None of the five patients with discordant results on SPT and ICT developed OHE. CONCLUSIONS: ICT has good sensitivity/specificity for MHE diagnosis, is reliable and is equivalent to SPT for predicting OHE development.

Attention↗