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Developmental changes in information central to artifact representation: evidence from ‘functional fluency’ tasks
Author(s) -
Defeyter Margaret Anne,
Avons S.E.,
German Tamsin C.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00617.x
Subject(s) - artifact (error) , psychology , fluency , object (grammar) , cognitive psychology , representation (politics) , function (biology) , developmental psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science , neuroscience , evolutionary biology , politics , mathematics education , political science , law , biology
Research suggests that while information about design is a central feature of older children's artifact representations it may be less important in the artifact representations of younger children. Three experiments explore the pattern of responses that 5‐ and 7‐year‐old children generate when asked to produce multiple uses for familiar ( Experiments 1, 2 ) and novel ( Experiment 3 ) named objects. Results showed that while older children tended to produce responses based on the known design function of the object, younger children's responses were more flexible, though still constrained by the mechanical structure of the object. Only when ignorant of a novel object's design function did older children produce more varied functions than did younger children. These results suggest that representations supporting object function undergo change across this period of development, with information about design assuming more importance later than it does earlier.