An apple is more than just a fruit: cross-classification in children's concepts.

This research explored children's use of multiple forms of conceptual organization. Experiments 1 and 2 examined script (e.g., breakfast foods), taxonomic (e.g., fruits), and evaluative (e.g., junk foods) categories. The results showed that 4- and 7-year-olds categorized foods into all 3 categories, and 3-year-olds used both taxonomic and script categories. Experiment 3 found that 4- and 7-year-olds can cross-classify items, that is, classify a single food into both taxonomic and script categories. Experiments 4 and 5 showed that 7-year-olds and to some degree 4-year-olds can selectively use categories to make inductive inferences about foods. The results reveal that children do not rely solely on one form of categorization but are flexible in the types of categories they form and use.

[1]  D. Medin,et al.  The native mind: biological categorization and reasoning in development and across cultures. , 2004, Psychological review.

[2]  P. Bloom,et al.  How specific is the shape bias? , 2003, Child development.

[3]  S. Chaiken,et al.  The Automatic Evaluation of Novel Stimuli , 2002, Psychological science.

[4]  Gregory L. Murphy.  The Big Book of Concepts , 2002 .

[5]  G. Murphy,et al.  Causes of taxonomic sorting by adults: A test of the thematic-to-taxonomic shift , 2001, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[6]  Agnès Blaye,et al.  Thematic and taxonomic relations in preschoolers: The development of flexibility in categorization choices , 2001 .

[7]  J. Stiles,et al.  Developmental Change in Spatial Cognitive Processing: Complexity Effects and Block Construction Performance in Preschool Children , 2001 .

[8]  Gregory L. Murphy,et al.  Thematic relations in adults' concepts. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[9]  Gedeon O. Deák,et al.  The Growth of Flexible Problem Solving: Preschool Children Use Changing Verbal Cues to Infer Multiple Word Meanings , 2000 .

[10]  B. Ross,et al.  Induction with cross-classified categories , 1999, Memory & cognition.

[11]  Brian H. Ross,et al.  Food for Thought: Cross-Classification and Category Organization in a Complex Real-World Domain , 1999, Cognitive Psychology.

[12]  Åse Innes-Ker,et al.  Emotional response categorization. , 1999 .

[13]  E Krackow,et al.  Are lions and tigers substitutes or associates? Evidence against slot filler accounts of children's early categorization. , 1998, Child development.

[14]  E. Clark.  Conceptual perspective and lexical choice in acquisition , 1997, Cognition.

[15]  D. Medin,et al.  Categorization and Reasoning among Tree Experts: Do All Roads Lead to Rome? , 1997, Cognitive Psychology.

[16]  P. Blewitt,et al.  Understanding Categorical Hierarchies: The Earliest Levels of Skill , 1994 .

[17]  Evan Heit,et al.  Similarity and property effects in inductive reasoning. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[18]  K. Nelson,et al.  Slot-filler and Conventional Category Organisation in Young Korean Children , 1993 .

[19]  S. Gelman,et al.  On wooden pillows: multiple classification and children's category-based inductions. , 1992, Child development.

[20]  M A Sell,et al.  The development of children's knowledge structures: events, slots, and taxonomies , 1992, Journal of Child Language.

[21]  Katherine Nelson,et al.  Taxonomic Knowledge: What Kind and When? , 1992 .

[22]  P. Blewitt,et al.  Acquiring taxonomic relations in lexical memory: The role of superordinate category labels☆ , 1992 .

[23]  S. Waxman,et al.  Beyond the basics: preschool children label objects flexibly at multiple hierarchical levels , 1992, Journal of Child Language.

[24]  Thomas C. Toppino,et al.  The development of taxonomic structure in lexical memory , 1991 .

[25]  J. Mandler,et al.  Separating the sheep from the goats: Differentiating global categories , 1991, Cognitive Psychology.

[26]  K. Nelson,et al.  Category production in response to script and category cues by kindergarten and second-grade children , 1990 .

[27]  F. Keil.  Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development , 1989 .

[28]  S. Gelman,et al.  Children's inductive inferences within superordinate categories: the role of language and category structure. , 1988, Child development.

[29]  S. Gelman.  The development of induction within natural kind and artifact categories , 1988, Cognitive Psychology.

[30]  E. Markman,et al.  Young children's inductions from natural kinds: the role of categories and appearances. , 1987, Child development.

[31]  E. Markman,et al.  Categories and induction in young children , 1986, Cognition.

[32]  P. Rozin,et al.  The child's conception of food: Differentiation of categories of rejected substances in the 16 months to 5 year age range , 1986, Appetite.

[33]  Rochel Gelman,et al.  Preschoolers' use of superordinate relations in classification and language , 1986 .

[34]  L. Barsalou.  Ideals, central tendency, and frequency of instantiation as determinants of graded structure in categories. , 1985, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[35]  Katherine Nelson,et al.  Slot-Filler Categories as Memory Organizers for Young Children. , 1985 .

[36]  Paul Rozin,et al.  The child's conception of food: the development of food rejections with special reference to disgust and contamination sensitivity. , 1984, Child development.

[37]  L. Barsalou,et al.  Ad hoc categories , 1983, Memory & cognition.

[38]  E. Markman,et al.  Developmental differences in the acquisition of basic and superordinate categories. , 1980 .

[39]  R. Zajonc.  Feeling and thinking : Preferences need no inferences , 1980 .

[40]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Conceptual preference for thematic or taxonomic relations: A nonmonotonic age trend from preschool to old age ☆ , 1979 .

[41]  Wayne D. Gray,et al.  Basic objects in natural categories , 1976, Cognitive Psychology.

[42]  D. Denney.  Developmental Changes in Concept Utilization Among Normal and Retarded Children. , 1975 .

[43]  Stephen K. Reed,et al.  Pattern recognition and categorization , 1972 .

[44]  J. Piaget,et al.  The early growth of logic in the child : classification and seriation , 1965 .

[45]  D. Medin,et al.  Tall is typical: Central tendency, ideal dimensions, and graded category structure among tree experts and novices , 2000, Memory & cognition.

[46]  J. Coley,et al.  On the importance of comparative research: the case of folkbiology. , 2000, Child development.

[47]  M. Siegal,et al.  Children's understanding of biology and health , 1999 .

[48]  L. Birch,et al.  Children's Understanding of Biology and Health: Children and food , 1999 .

[49]  G. Deák,et al.  On having complex representations of things: preschoolers use multiple words for objects and people. , 1998, Developmental psychology.

[50]  S. Waxman,et al.  Challenging the notion of a thematic preference in young children. , 1997, Developmental psychology.

[51]  K. Springer,et al.  Early understanding of age- and environment-related noxiousness in biological kinds: Evidence for a naive theory , 1996 .

[52]  M. Tomasello,et al.  Variability in early communicative development. , 1994, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[53]  Gregory L. Murphy,et al.  Theories and concept formation. , 1993 .

[54]  J. Belsky,et al.  Early patterns of mother-infant dyadic interaction: Infant, mother, and family demographic antecedents , 1993 .

[55]  D. Laplane.  Thought and language. , 1992, Behavioural neurology.

[56]  Lawrence W. Barsalou,et al.  Deriving Categories to Achieve Goals , 1991 .

[57]  P. Rozin.  Development in the food domain , 1990 .

[58]  Ellen M. Markman,et al.  Categorization and Naming in Children: Problems of Induction , 1989 .

[59]  Katherine N Nelson,et al.  Where Do Taxonomic Categories Come from , 1988 .

[60]  C. Mervis.  Child-basic object categories and early lexical development. , 1987 .

[61]  Daryl B. Greenfield,et al.  Young Children's Preference for Complementary Pairs: Evidence against a Shift to a Taxonomic Preference. , 1986 .

[62]  K. Nelson,et al.  Event knowledge : structure and function in development , 1986 .

[63]  S. Carey.  Conceptual Change in Childhood , 1985 .

[64]  D. Denney,et al.  Conceptual Preferences Among Preschool Children. , 1976 .

[65]  A. B. Horowitz,et al.  Effects of Task-Specific Instructions on the Picture Memory of Children in Recall and Recognition Tasks. , 1976 .

[66]  F. Williams.  Children and food. , 1966, The Canadian nurse.

[67]  I. Sigel,et al.  Psychological significance of styles of conceptualization. , 1963, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.