Ons Bart, Wagemans Johan
Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Leuven (K U Leuven), Tiensestraat 102, box 3711, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; e-mail:
Iperception. 2012;3(7):481-94. doi: 10.1068/i0481. Epub 2012 Jul 18.
In distinguishing individual shapes (defined by their contours), older children (6.5 years of age on average) performed better than younger children (4 years of age on average), and, although the task did not involve any categorization or generalization, the error pattern was qualitatively affected by shape differences that are generally common distinctions between objects belonging to different categories. The influence of these shape differences was also observed for unfamiliar shapes, demonstrating that the influence of categorization experience was not modulated by the retrieval of shape features from known categories but rather related to a different perception of shape by age. The results suggest a direct influence of categorization experience on more abstract shape processing. When children were distinguishing shapes, new words were paired with the target shapes, and in 2 additional tasks, the acquired name-shape associations were tested. The younger age group was able to remember more words correctly.
在区分个体形状（由其轮廓定义）时，年龄较大的儿童（平均6.5岁）比年龄较小的儿童（平均4岁）表现更好，并且，尽管该任务不涉及任何分类或概括，但错误模式在质量上受到形状差异的影响，这些形状差异通常是属于不同类别的物体之间的常见区别。对于不熟悉的形状，也观察到了这些形状差异的影响，这表明分类经验的影响不是由从已知类别中检索形状特征来调节的，而是与年龄对形状的不同感知有关。结果表明分类经验对更抽象的形状处理有直接影响。当儿童区分形状时，新单词与目标形状配对，并在另外两项任务中测试获得的名称-形状关联。年龄较小的组能够正确记住更多的单词。
