Children's use of perceptual cues in product categorization

John, Deborah Roedder; Sujan, Mita

doi:10.1002/mar.4220070404

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Moreover, the results from Studies 1, 2, and 3 support our hypothesis: Children generated a higher proportion of perceptual cues than young adults, for all inference tasks. These findings fit with the definition of children as ‘perceptually oriented’ (Flavell, ; John & Sujan, ; Wartella, Daniel, Scott, Jacob, & Allison, ). Younger children have overall less knowledge of and experience with objects and their hidden features and tend to spontaneously focus on perceptual over hidden properties (Gelman & Davidson, ; Gentner, ; Keil & Batterman, ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Opening the cuebox: The information children and young adults generate and rely on when making inferences from memory

Ruggeri

Olsson

Katsikopoulos

2015

British J of Dev Psycho

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We used a cue-generation and a cue-selection paradigm to investigate the cues children (9- to 12-year-olds) and young adults (17-year-olds) generate and select for a range of inferences from memory. We found that children generated more cues than young adults, who, when asked why they did not generate some particular cues, responded that they did not consider them relevant for the task at hand. On average, the cues generated by children were more perceptual but as informative as the cues generated by young adults. When asked to select the most informative of two cues, both children and young adults tended to choose a hidden (i.e., not perceptual) cue. Our results suggest a developmental change in the cuebox (i.e., the set of cues used to make inferences from memory): New cues are added to the cuebox as more cues are learned, and some old, perceptual cues, although informative, are replaced with hidden cues, which, by both children and young adults, are generally assumed to be more informative than perceptual cues.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Opening the cuebox: The information children and young adults generate and rely on when making inferences from memory

Ruggeri

Olsson

Katsikopoulos

2015

British J of Dev Psycho

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“…Because we employed a task and instructions that encouraged thematic processing, we expected, based on the results of previous research (e.g., John and Sujan 1990), that animate objects, since they are thought to enhance thematic categorization (Blanchet, Dunham and Dunham 2001), would be more accurately categorized. The nature of our task encouraged thematic processing because we allowed the children to make direct comparisons (as in Namy 1999 andGentner 2002) between the objects and each environment, and we used object labels (as in Gelman and Markman 1987).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preschoolers Categorize Animate Objects Better in the Presence of a Dog

et al. 2012

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The current study was designed to examine whether preschool children categorize picture stimuli differentially in the presence of a real dog compared with a stuffed dog or a human. Seventeen preschool children (age in months; M = 51.67, SD = 8.06), both Typical and those with a developmental delay ("Identified"), were asked to categorize Animate and Inanimate objects into two environments (Farm and Ocean) in each of three Collaborator conditions (Real Dog, Stuffed Dog, and Human). As predicted, there was a main effect of animation: the children more accurately categorized Animate (e.g., cow) exemplars than Inanimate ones (e.g., tractor). Additionally, the Animation variable interacted with Collaborator, such that in the presence of the real dog the impact of animation was significant, but this effect was not significant in the presence of the stuffed dog or human. This result indicates that the presence of the real dog served as a highly salient stimulus which encouraged the children to focus more of their attention on other animate objects in the list. This result provides additional evidence that the presence of a dog helps preschool children to restrict their attention to the demands of the task. This is a new and interesting finding that indicates that the presence of a real dog does have an impact on cognitive task performance.

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“…Butter et al (1991), for instance, found that OTC medicine commercials do not, in general, influence children's choices concerning use of those medicines. However, John and Sujan (1990) found that even young children can use perceptual cues in a manner that is diagnostic of product category membership and, further, that this ability increases with age. Macklin (1990) found that casting older models was better for products aimed at young children, but this varied for product types and could be influenced by product motivation.…”

Section: Factors Affecting Information Processing Attitudes and Choicementioning

confidence: 93%

“…Yi and Gray (1996) introduced an application of "attribute diagnosticity" as an "attribute's usefulness for distinguishing instances from non-instances of a category" (p. 605) and as a key determinant of an ambiguous product's typicality as a member of a category. John and Sujan (1990) found that young children can use perceptual cues in a manner that is diagnostic of product category membership and that this ability increases with age. Consistent with Jacoby, Johar, and Morrin's (1998) observation that metaphor applications, as a growing body of categorization research, are also evident in P&M, Ji (2002), for instance, used metaphors such as first love, arranged marriage, one-night stand, good friend, buddy, and enmity to categorize child-brand relationships.…”

Section: Attentionmentioning

confidence: 97%