Defeyter Margaret Anne, Avons S E, German Tamsin C
Division of Psychology, Northumbria University, UK.
Dev Sci. 2007 Sep;10(5):538-46. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00617.x.
Research suggests that while information about design is a central feature of older children's artifact representations it may be less important in the artifact representations of younger children. Three experiments explore the pattern of responses that 5- and 7-year-old children generate when asked to produce multiple uses for familiar (Experiments 1, 2) and novel (Experiment 3) named objects. Results showed that while older children tended to produce responses based on the known design function of the object, younger children's responses were more flexible, though still constrained by the mechanical structure of the object. Only when ignorant of a novel object's design function did older children produce more varied functions than did younger children. These results suggest that representations supporting object function undergo change across this period of development, with information about design assuming more importance later than it does earlier.
研究表明，虽然关于设计的信息是大龄儿童人工制品表征的核心特征，但在低龄儿童的人工制品表征中可能没那么重要。三项实验探究了5岁和7岁儿童在被要求为熟悉的（实验1、2）和新奇的（实验3）命名物体想出多种用途时所产生的反应模式。结果显示，虽然大龄儿童倾向于基于物体已知的设计功能给出反应，但低龄儿童的反应更灵活，不过仍受物体机械结构的限制。只有在不了解新奇物体的设计功能时，大龄儿童才会比低龄儿童想出更多样的功能。这些结果表明，支持物体功能的表征在这一发展阶段会发生变化，关于设计的信息在后期比早期更为重要。
