Children's reliance on creator's intent in extending names for artifacts.

Full Abstract

When children learn a name for a novel artifact, they tend to extend the name to other artifacts that share the same shape--a phenomenon known as the shape bias. The present studies investigated an intentional account of this bias. In Study 1, 3-year-olds were shown two objects of the same shape, and were given an explanation for why the objects were the same shape even though they were intended to be different kinds. The shape bias disappeared in children provided with this explanation. In Study 2, 3-year-olds were shown triads of objects, and were either given no information about the function of a named target object, told the function that object could fulfill, or told the functions all three objects were intended to fulfill. Only in the third condition did children overcome a shape bias in favor of a function bias when extending the name of the target object. These findings indicate that 3-year-olds' shape bias results from intuitions about what artifacts were intended to be.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Diesendruck, Gil (G); Markson, Lori (L); Bloom, Paul (P);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel. dieseng(-atsign-)mail.biu.ac.il

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Clinical Trial; Journal Article; Randomized Controlled Trial; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS (Psychol Sci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Mar; vol 14 (issue 2) : pp 164-8

Dates: Created 2003/03/28; Completed 2003/06/06; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12661679, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.

See 100+ related articles.