Effects of Pretraining Concept Names on Conceptual Sorting Task in Children

Abstract

showed that (a) in 3-yr.-olds the sorting was notfacilitated by the pretraining, (b) in 4-yr.-olds the sorting was facilitatedwhen the same instances were used for the pretraining and the sorting tasks while it was not facilitated ashen the different instances were used, and (c) the facilitating effect was obtained for 6-and 7-yr.-olds under both pretrainings. Further experiments examined the possible sources of the inefficacy of pretraining with the different instances in 4-yr.-olds. Experiment III suggested that children could do produce the concept names but could not use them effectively in the sorting, Experiment IV showed that the direct instruction to use the concept names was highly effective for the sorting and the indirect hint was effective only when the pretraining had been given. The findings were discussed with reference to the production and utilization of the concept names in the sorting.