Merriman W E, Jarvis L H, Marazita J M
Department of Psychology, Kent State University, OH 44242, USA.
J Child Lang. 1995 Feb;22(1):129-49. doi: 10.1017/s0305000900009661.
Thirty-six three-, four- and five-year-olds were asked to select labels for deceptive stimuli (e.g. for an eraser that looked like a pencil). Three types of labelling were investigated--simple (e.g. 'is an eraser'); appearance-predicated (e.g. 'looks like an eraser'); and reality-predicated (e.g. 'is really and truly an eraser'). An age-related appearance--reality shift was observed in simple labelling (e.g. older children were more likely than younger ones to accept eraser and reject pencil as simple names for the pencil-eraser). This trend was robust over method and semantic domain, though weaker with object than with colour labels. As in previous research, older children were more likely than younger ones to map different appearance- than reality-predicated labels onto an item (e.g. to accept that the pencil-eraser looks like a pencil, but is really and truly an eraser); however, all age groups were reluctant to extend more than one name to a stimulus via a common predicate (e.g. to accept two reality-predicated labels for the same object). This one-label-perpredicate pattern was observed more frequently within reality than within appearance predicates; more frequently with colour than with object names, and with questions blocked by predicate than by name. It is argued that younger children maintained this pattern because of inflexible encoding, but that older ones did so because of better understanding of the appearance-reality distinction, greater reality dominance, and a Mutual Exclusivity bias.
研究人员要求36名3岁、4岁和5岁的儿童为具有欺骗性的刺激物（例如看起来像铅笔的橡皮擦）选择标签。研究调查了三种类型的标签——简单标签（例如“是一块橡皮擦”）、基于外观的标签（例如“看起来像一块橡皮擦”）和基于实际情况的标签（例如“真的是一块橡皮擦”）。在简单标签任务中观察到了与年龄相关的从外观到实际情况的转变（例如，年龄较大的儿童比年龄较小的儿童更有可能接受将橡皮擦作为铅笔形状橡皮擦的简单名称，而拒绝使用铅笔）。尽管在物体标签方面比颜色标签方面这种趋势较弱，但这一趋势在方法和语义领域中都很明显。与之前的研究一样，年龄较大的儿童比年龄较小的儿童更有可能将不同的基于外观而非基于实际情况的标签应用于一个物品（例如，接受铅笔形状的橡皮擦看起来像铅笔，但实际上是一块橡皮擦）；然而，所有年龄组都不愿意通过一个共同的谓词为一个刺激物赋予多个名称（例如，接受为同一物体赋予两个基于实际情况的标签）。这种每个谓词一个标签的模式在基于实际情况的谓词中比在基于外观的谓词中更频繁地被观察到；在颜色标签方面比在物体名称方面更频繁地出现，并且在按谓词而非按名称进行分组的问题中更频繁地出现。研究认为，年幼儿童保持这种模式是因为编码不灵活，而年龄较大的儿童这样做是因为对外观与实际情况的区别有更好的理解、实际情况占主导地位以及存在互斥偏向。
