Abstract
In a series of tests requiring judgements of orientation, the impact of a verbally transmitted equivalence criterion (e.g. “Pick me out the one exactly the same as this one”) was compared with one which specified the ‘identity’ of the target as a ‘standing up’ or ‘lying down’ pattern. When a subset of four-year-olds was given the latter instruction, their performance improved dramatically (although all stimuli were lying flat on a horizontal surface) but reverted to a previous (low) level when equivalence instructions were reintroduced. The results suggest that findings from equivalence tests cannot be used to make unambiguous inferences concerning the competence of young children to make identification judgements.
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