Effect of background knowledge on object categorization and generalization in preschool children

Lin and Murphy (1997) have studied how adults learn to associate a new theory about an object with specific perceptual features of the object. In the present experiment, their paradigm was adapted for threeand four-year olds who were compared with adults. The role of perceptual similarity between the learning stimulus and transfer stimuli was also assessed. Data show that children aged three were able to understand the relationship between a new microtheory and perceptual data (the stimuli). However, their generalization to new objects was more constrained by perceptual similarity between the learning object and transfer stimuli than adultsÕ generalization was.