Influence of feature training on the formation of exemplar-specific representations in children with mental retardation.

Whether exemplar-specific or prototype representations were primarily used by children with mild mental retardation in a categorization task consisting of two groups of make-believe animals whose features were ill-defined was examined. Categorization performance of familiar, prototypic, and novel test phase exemplars indicated that these children were able to acquire and use both types of representations. A feature-labeling training procedure, expected to promote the formation of exemplar-specific representations prior to exemplar classification, was also incorporated within the current study's design. It was unclear whether such training had any impact on the formation of exemplar-specific representations.