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The effects of the diversity and relative dimensions of the peripheral objects on the meaning of the qualifying word for young children

2005; The Japanese Psychological Association; Volume: 75; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.4992/jjpsy.75.487

1884-1082

Takahiro Tamura,

Child and Animal Learning Development

Two experiments were conducted to test 100 children (aged five years) on an object named novel word selection task. In Experiment 1, the experimenter labeled a novel word to a target object (an elephant) which was in a cage alone, or which was in a cage with many objects (other animals and instruments) around it. In the former case, the subjects usually qualified the word meaning only when similarly restricted by its peripheral objects (a cage). In the latter case, the subjects were likely to qualify the word meaning with a conceptual level name (an elephant). In Experiment 2, the experimenter labeled a novel word to a target object which was in a small cage, or in a large cage. In the former case, the subjects were likely to qualify the word meaning only when being similarly restricted by its peripheral objects. In the latter case, the subjects were likely to qualify the word meaning with a conceptual level name. These findings suggested that, for young children, objects peripheral to a target object had an effect on the meaning of the qualifying word.