Object Characteristics and Recall in Young Children

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the hypothesis that preschool children are "perceptually bound" in their encoding of objects. This hypothesis implies that preschool children tend to encode perceptual attributes of objects in recall tasks, but not conceptual attributes. In Experiment 1, encoding of conceptual attributes of objects was examined by presenting children with pictures of objects that varied in typicality. Preschool children were more likely to remember typical objects than less typical objects. In Experiment 2, objects were orthogonally varied in size and typicality to examine the influence of both perceptual and conceptual attributes. Both types of attributes of objects were found to influence recall independently. In the context of variations in size and typicality, the probability of recall for both large and typical objects was greater than for small and less typical objects. The results show that children are influenced by both conceptual and perceptual stimulus characteristics, and, contrary to the hypothesis, preschool children are not "perceptually bound".