Children's Inductive Inferences are Influenced by Some Features More than Others

The present study integrates ideas and approaches from studies of psychophysics and conceptual development. Preschool age children were presented with creatures that either fit into a prototypical category or had features/labels from competing categories. Children were asked to complete classification (e.g., identify a creature’s category) and induction (e.g., identify a creatures missing features, given a category label) trials. The feature dimensions tested, shape and color, were selected in order to evaluate the relative salience of different kinds of features. When presented with prototypical category members, children’s classifications and inductions were accurate. When presented with creatures with counter-predictive features, neither feature was found to unduly influence children’s classifications. In contrast, when children were asked to make inductions about creatures with features that conflicted with their category labels, one feature – color – was found to significantly influence inductions while the other feature – shape – did not. This finding indicates that consideration of psychophysical properties is required in order to accurately interpret studies exploring children’s conceptual development.