Basic-Level Categorization in Preschoolers, School-Age Children, and College Students

Abstract

Features used by children and adults to categorize items at the basic level were investigated in two experiments. In the first experiment, preschool children categorized pictures at the basic level more than 90% of the time, replicating previous research. In the second experiment, a match-to-sample task was used in which visual and behavioral similarity of non-basic-level matching items constituted the independent variables. Subjects were preschoolers, school-age children, and adult college students. Basic-level matches exceeded chance expectation in the school age and adult groups only, preschool children made more non-basic-level matches than did school-age children and adults, and all age groups made more non-basic-level matches when there was high visual similarity between the sample and non-basic-level matching items. These results suggest possible developmental differences in processes that mediate basic-level categorization, and highlight the role of perceptual features in influencing such categorization.