Effects of Perceptible Attributes of Instances on Learning Conceptual and Half-Conceptual Sorting Tasks in Children

Children at 3, 4, and 5 years of age were given either conceptual sorting task (CST) or half-conceptual sorting task (HST) with the instances of fruit and vegetable, each of which was compatible (Com) or incompatible (Inc) with the perceptible attributes of the instances, roundness and slenderness. The main results were that (a) CST was learned faster than HST for the upper age group but the difference between CST and HST was not significant for the middle and the lower age groups, and (b) the effects of Comand Inc on CST were greater for the lower and the middle groups than for the upper group. These were interpreted to show that 3- and 4-year-old children tend to be more susceptible to perceptible attributes than 5-year-old children, who tend to use concepts more readily than perceptible attributes of instances