Developmental Differences in the Acquisition of Basic and Superordinate Categories

HORTON, MARJORIE S., and MARKMAN, ELLEN M. Developmental Differences in the Acquisition of Basic and Superordinate Categories. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 708-719. This study examined the relative utility of exemplar and linguistic information for acquiring basic and superordinate categories. The perceptual similarity among members of basic categories suggests that a child could learn these categories simply from exposure to exemplars. The dissimilarity among members of superordinate categories suggests a child would also need to be informed of the relevant criteria for categorization. Developmental differences were predicted in the ability to benefit from the linguistically specified criterial information. These hypotheses were tested by having preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade children learn artificial animal categories. Each child was trained on 1 category through exemplar information alone and 1 through exemplar information supplemented with linguistic descriptions of criterial properties. The results supported the hypotheses: Linguistic information facilitated acquisition of only superordinate, not basic level, categories, and only for the older children. These findings indicate that the internal structure of categories and the processing abilities of the learner are important determinants of acquisition.