Intraverbal acquisition of semantic concepts by preschoolers

JOURNAL

OF EXPERIMENTAL

CHILD

PSYCHOLOGY

42, 169-186

(1986)

lntraverbal Acquisition of Semantic Concepts by Preschoolers BARBARA

D. DEBARYSHE State

University

AND

of Nets

GROVER

J.

WHITEHURST

York at Stormy Brook

Intraverbal learning is a process through which semantic knowledge is acquired from purely linguistic information. The concern of this study is to investigate the role of intraverbal learning in the preschool-aged child’s acquisition of semantic concepts. Three- and 4-year-old children were either shown pictures illustrating novel concepts or they were told verbal definitions of novel concepts. the definitions containing information about key physical and functional properties. An additional manipulation consisted of including or omitting information about the superordinate category membership of the concept. Concept acquisition was assessed via a battery of comprehension tasks; these tasks assessed both referential and formal knowledge of the concepts. Results indicate a correspondence between the type of information received and the type of knowledge acquired, with intraverbal information resulting in broader knowledge than pictorial information. Purely pictorial information was associated with referential knowledge only. while intraverbal information enhanced both referential and formal knowledge. t I’)86 Academvz

Presr.

Inc.

One major developmental accomplishment of the preschool period is an exponential increase in the size of the child’s vocabulary (Carey, 1977; Lenneberg, 1973; McCarthy, 1954). Figures vary widely, placing the size of a 6-year-old’s comprehension vocabulary between 2600 and 14,000 words (Carey, 1977: M. E. Smith, 1926; Templin, 1957). Despite this divergence, it remains obvious that the young child must be credited with an impressive amount of lexical and conceptual growth. The task of explaining the mechanisms by which this accomplishment is achieved remains. The concern of this study is to investigate the role of intraverbal learning processes in the preschool-aged child’s acquisition of semantic concepts: Intraverbal learning has been defined as “a process in which language is used to acquire language” (Whitehurst, 1979. p. 133). Much of our knowledge of word meanings is derived from linguistic sources. This research was supported in part by NICHHD Grant 1 ROI HD19245-OIAI to the second author, and by grants of equipment from NEC Telephones, Inc. Address requests for reprints to the first author at Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-2500. 169 0022-0965186

$3 .OO

CopyrIght cc lY86 hy Academic Press. Inc. All rtphtr of reproduction in any fbrm reserved.

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One such source is a verbal definition. A second, perhaps more common. source of intraverbal information is contextual use in conversation. Sternberg (1984) suggests that listeners actively scan the verbal context in which a novel word is heard, searching for clues about important properties of the new concept such as size, shape, location, function, and category membership. Intraverbal learning plays a variety of important roles. First, as Olson (1977) shows. formal education is based on intraverbal learning. School is a setting in which intraverbal information, in the form of lecture and textbook material, is the primary source of conveying knowledge. In addition, schools continually require children to display their knowledge in a verbal (i.e., oral or written) form. Second. certain words, called dictionnr?/ words by Bertrand Russell (1940), derive their meaning through verbal definition rather than through referential correspondence. Such abstract words (e.g., f&&m) can only be acquired through intraverbal means; perhaps not coincidentally, such words do not appear in children’s early vocabularies. Finally, intraverbal learning may provide an efficient means for children to acquire and expand the meanings of words that do occur in their early vocabularies. However, prevalent models of early semantic development have not included intraverbal learning as an important component. Models of early language development have emphasized the role of perceptual experience in vocabulary acquisition. Brown ( 1959) proposed that children acquire their first vocabulary labels by ostension, a process in which the adult verbally labels an object held under joint attention with a child. There is evidence. however, that ostension is the primary teaching strategy only during the earliest stages of language acquisition. Rather than dominating parent-child conversation, ostension. in the form of single-word labels and deictic statements (e.g., “That’s a ball.“) comprises only 2 to 16% of parental utterances to IL?- to 37-month-old children (Cross, 1977; Falco, 198.5; Goddard, Durkin, & Rutter. 198.5; Newport, Gleitman, & Gleitman. 1977; Snow, 1977). While parents make frequent use of vocabulary teaching strategies (Moerk, 1983), the proportion of simple labeling decreases with age and increasing child linguistic skill (Howe, 1981; Ninio, 1980). Presumably, ostension is replaced with more linguistically informative sentences. For example. 27% of parental utterances to Z-year-old children involve discussion of the function, perceptual. or physical characteristics of objects (Goddard et al., 1985). A second important model of word acquisition is presented by Nelson, Rescorla, Grundel, & Benedict (1978). They suggest that labels are first acquired for objects which already have a functional significance for the child; this preverbal meaning is developed through perceptual experience and physical interaction with the object. Thus, Nelson et al. propose that children must first have an experience-based concept of an object’s

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function before they can acquire a verbal label for that object. In a similar vein, Macnamara (1972) suggests that children first use nonlinguistic cues to determine the meaning which a speaker intends to convey, and then work out the relationship between the meaning and the verbal expression heard. Both Macnamara and Nelson et al. explicitly discount the role of intraverbal learning, proposing that children use meaning as a clue to language but cannot use language as a clue to meaning. Brown’s, Nelson et al.‘s, and Macnamara’s models are primarily useful in describing the initial entry of a word in the child’s lexicon. But through what processes does the child come to map the referential and conceptual domain of a word onto the boundaries commonly used by adults? It is widely agreed that the child’s lexicon undergoes continual revision and transformation; it may take quite a bit of additional information and feedback before an initial word achieves its (by adult standards) mature form (Anglin, 1978; Brown, 1959; Carey, 1977; Nelson et al.. 1978). A relatively unexplored hypothesis is that intraverbal learning may play an important role in lexical acquisition and semantic development. Carey (1977) suggests that children make use of two sources of data: the linguistic context in which a word occurs and the situation in which the word is used. Existing theoretical models have emphasized the use of situational information and largely failed to consider the importance of intraverbal information. When models have included the use of intraverbal learning, it has been assumed that such processes are operative only with older children (Werner & Kaplan, 1952). Only a small number of studies have specifically investigated children’s ability to learn intraverbally and most of these studies involve children of older than preschool age. Werner and Kaplan (1952) investigated children’s ability to decode the meaning of nonsense words embedded in the context of meaningful but thematically unrelated written sentences may be used for may be long or short. ” “A corplutn (e.g., “A cot-plum support.“). Although the youngest subjects (ages 8.5 to 9.5) did poorly on this task, it must be noted that the solution words were often abstract (e.g.. justice, obstruction, deceive) and perhaps not even in the children’s lexicons. Martin and Olson (1971) compared the information available in perceptual and intraverbal contexts for Syear-old children. Either an increase in the variety of information provided in verbal cues or an increase in the number of perceptual examples seen had positive and equal effects on children’s concept formation. However, simultaneously providing high levels of variety in both the verbal and perceptual contexts impeded performance: the authors attribute this to a probable information overload. Harris (197.5) explored two particular types of intraverbal cues. In one study, children were told the superordinate category membership of a

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nonsense word (e.g., “A mib is a bird.“). Given this information, 5 and 7-year-olds were able to make appropriate inferences concerning characteristic properties of the concept. For example, they could answer questions such as “Does a nzib have wings’?” In a second experiment, 7-year-olds were also provided with information about a distinguishing attribute of the novel concept (e.g., they were told “A mib is a red drink”). Children could use this information to differentiate the novel concept from other subordinate members of the same superordinate category (e.g., they knew that mib was not milk). Several goals motivate the present research. First, and most importantly, we wish to explore whether children substantially younger than those studied previously are capable of learning from intrdverbal cues. In light of the frequency with which parents present nonostensive intraverbal information to young children (Goddard et al., 1985: Shipley, Kuhn, & Madden, 1983), it would be surprising if children did not profit from such information. Yet, there is no direct evidence that young children do profit from intraverbal cues, and some evidence to suggest that they may not (Werner & Kaplan, 1952). We hypothesize that preschoolers will be able to utilize both ostensive and intraverbal cues in the process of semantic concept formation. We also hypothesize that preschool-aged children will show an age-related increase in intraverbal learning ability, while ostensive learning ability will be fully mature at the beginning of the preschool period. Since we expect older children to derive more benefit from intraverbal information, this study included children from two different age groups within the preschool years. Second. if intraverbal cues are utilized by preschoolers. it is important to know what types of cues are most informative. We presented children with one or both of two types of intraverbal information: (1) a verbal definition containing information about important perceptual and functional properties of novel concepts and (2) a statement naming the superordinate category membership of novel concepts. We thought that explicit definitions might provide more accessible information to young subjects than the contextual verbal cues used in previous studies (Martin & Olson, 1971; Werner & Kaplan, 1952). In addition, we wished to determine whether the successful utilization of superordinate category cues by older children (Harris, 197s) is also demonstrated by preschoolers. Third, it has been suggested that children learn different things from ostensive and intraverbal information (Olson. 1977; Whitehurst. 1979). with the former enhancing extensional (referential) knowledge. and the latter enhancing intensional (formal) knowledge. To explore this possibility, concept formation was tested by a multimodal assessment involving four different tasks. Two of the tasks assess extensional knowledge and two assess intensional knowledge. Our third hypothesis predicts a correspondence between the type of information supplied and the type 01

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knowledge derived. We expect that pictorial information will be most beneficial on the pictorially oriented tests of referential knowledge, and that intraverbal information will be of most benefit on the verbally oriented tests of formal knowledge. A related prediction is that the intraverbal provision of superordinate cues will be especially beneficial on a verbal categorization task. Since a superordinate term is itself an intraverbal concept, it is difficult to imagine how children could come to understand such terms other than through intraverbal means. Finally. if intraverbal learning is shown to exist in a reasonably powerful form during the preschool period, a reevaluation or expansion of existing models of vocabulary acquisition would be in order. It would also then be pertinent to consider the role of intraverbal learning in the topics of individual differences in language development and language deviance and delay. METHODS Subjects

Twelve 3-year-old (mean age 3: 2, range 2:9-3 :3) and twelve 4-yearold (mean age 4: 10, range 4:6-5: 2) children recruited from the same university preschool program served as subjects. There were equal numbers of boys and girls within each age group. Stimulus

Materials

1. Twelve novel concepts were selected for training (see Table 1). These concepts were all atypical members of concrete natural categories. The labels for these concepts are not expected to occur in either the receptive or expressive vocabularies of preschool-aged children (Carroll & White, 1973: Dunn, 1959). However, the superordinate categories to which these concepts belong should be quite familiar to children of this age (Anghn, 1979; Nelson. 1973). Four additional concepts which also fit the above criteria were selected. No subjects received training on these four distractor concepts. Pictures of the distractor concepts served as additional stimuli in the pictorial comprehension tasks to increase the number of possible choices among which the subject selected. TABLE STIMULUS

Training Armadillo Botanist Cat’s cradle Concertina

1 CONCEPTS

concepts

Eel Kiwi Kohlrabi Paw-paw

Distractor Rickshaw Scythe Settle Sou’wester

concepts

Blimp Coffee grinder Flea Oil lamp

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2. Two sets of colored 4- x 6-in. drawings of the 16 concepts were constructed. Although the corresponding pictures in each set were different, they were similar in color, detail, and informativeness. 3. A verbal definition was constructed for each of the 12 training concepts (see Table 2); these definitions served as one type of intraverbal training stimulus. Each definition consisted of four brief sentences describing important perceptual and functional properties of the concept. TABLE VERBAL

(An armadillo An armadillo An armadillo An armadillo An armadillo

DEFINITIONS

AND

2

CATEGORY

INFORMATION

SENTENCES

is a kind of animal.) lives in the ground. has short legs and a tail. has very hard skin. looks like an army helmet.

(A botanist is a kind of person.) A botanist knows all about plants. A botanist knows the name of every plant. A botanist knows what makes plants grow A botanist’s job is to learn about plants. (A cat’s cradle is a kind of game.) A cat’s cradle is made of string. The cat’s cradle string goes on your fingers and between your The cat’s cradle string makes a pretty shape. When you plan cat’s cradle, you can put the string on another (A concertina is a kind of thing to play You hold a concertina between your You pull the concertina out. then you When you pull the concertina out. it A concertina can play songs.

music hands. push makes

on.) it in. sounds.

(An eel is a kind of fish.) An eel is long, like a snake. An eel swims in the water. An eel’s skin is smooth and slimey. An eel doesn’t have finx. (A kiwi is a kind of bird.) A kiwi has hairy feathers. A kiwi has a long beak. A kiwi has short legs. A kiwi’s wings are so small

that

it cannot

fly.

tA kohlrabi is a kind of vegetable.) A kohlrabi is round. A kohlrabi is white and hard. A kohlrabi has leaves growing from the top. You can cook kohlrabi and eat it for dinner.

hands. person’s

hands

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2-Continued

(A paw-paw is a kind of fruit.) A paw-paw is soft and red. A paw-paw tastes sweet. A paw-paw has sharp hairs on the outside. You have to cut the hairs off before you eat the paw-paw. (A scythe is a kind of tool.) A scythe has a long handle. A scythe has a curved knife at the bottom of the handle. You hold a scythe with both hands and swing it back and forth. A scythe cuts long grass. (A settle is a kind of furniture.) People sit on a settle. A settle has a tall back. A settle is made of wood. A settle does not have cushions. (A sou’wester A sou’wester A sou’wester You wear a A sou’wester

is a kind of hat.) covers the top of your head. covers the back of your neck. sou’wester when it rains. keeps your head dry.

(A rickshaw is a kind of thing to ride in.) A rickshaw has two wheels and a seat. A rickshaw has two long handles out in front. One person sits on the rickshaw’s seat. Another person holds the rickshaw’s handles and pulls.

4. A category information sentence of the form “A concepf HLZWZ~is a kind of superordinate ~utegory” was also constructed for each concept (see Table 2). If the category name was unlikely to be in the subject’s receptive vocabulary, the sentence was reworded in order to ensure comprehension (e.g., “A rickshaw is a kind of vehicle” was changed to “A rickshaw is a kind of thing to ride in”). These category information sentences served as a second type of intraverbal training stimulus. Training Procedure

Sessions were conducted in a small room adjacent to the subjects’ preschool classroom. The child sat at a small table opposite the experimenter. Each subject participated in a total of four experimental sessions. Sessions began with a training period during which the child received training on two novel concepts. Two within-subjects manipulations Cl) pictorial or definitional presentation and (2) superordinate information or no superordinate information were crossed to form four possible training conditions. The procedure for each training condition was as follows:

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Verbal dejinition. The child was told, “I’m going to tell you about X. Can you say X?” When the child repeated the correct concept name, he or she was told the verbal definition of the concept (see Table 2). one sentence at a time. The child was prompted to repeat each sentence after the experimenter. If the child did not imitate correctly, the sentence was repeated until a correct imitation was achieved: this correction procedure was identical for all training conditions. No child was unable to repeat the definitions accurately. Training was considered complete after the child had successfully repeated each sentence of the definition. Verbal dejinirion with superordincrte. The child was told, “I’m going to tell you about X. Can you say X?” When the child repeated the correct concept name, the experimenter said. “A(n) X is a kind of cutegot? name. What is a(n) X?” After the child repeated the correct category name, he or she was told the verbal definition of the concept (see Table 7), one sentence at a time. The child was prompted to repeat each sentence after the experimenter. Training was considered complete when the child had successfully repeated each sentence of the definition. Picture. The child was told, “I’m going to show you a(n) X. Can you say X?” When the child repeated the correct concept name the experimenter placed a picture illustrating that concept on the table in front of the child. The experimenter then ostensively labeled the picture four times (e.g.. “Look at the X”) while the child studied the picture. Picture with .superordinatc~. The child was told. “I’m going to show you a(n) X. Can you say X?” When the child repeated the correct concept name the experimenter said, “A(n) X is a kind of crrtegory natne. What is a(n) X?” After the child repeated the correct category name, the experimenter placed a picture illustrating that concept in front of the child. The experimenter then ostensively labeled the picture four times (e.g.. “Look at the X”) while the child studied the picture. Over the four sessions, each subject received training on eight concepts; two concepts were trained in each of the four different training conditions. For each subject, there remained four concepts for which no training was given; these served as control concepts for that particular child. The assignment of a concept to one of the training conditions or to the control condition was counterbalanced across subjects. as was the order in which a subject received each type of training. Comprehension

Assessttwnt

At the close of each session, comprehension tasks were administered to assess the child’s understanding of three concepts. Two of these concepts were those trained in the current session, the third was a control concept for which the child had received no training. Four types of comprehension tasks were given. The order in which tasks were administered was counterbalanced across both subjects and sessions: children

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did not receive any specific feedback on their performance. The procedure for each comprehension task is as follows: Recognition task. Four pictures were arranged on the table in front of the child. The experimenter said, “Point to the X.” After the child responded, the pictures were shuffled and the procedure was repeated until the child had been asked to point to each of the four pictures once. The pictures were taken from the same set used for pictorial training. Two of the pictures were of concepts trained earlier in the session, one was a picture of the control concept for that session, and one was a picture of an untrained distractor concept. Transfer task. The procedure for the transfer task was the same as for the recognition task, except that a different set of pictures were used. These pictures had not been used for pictorial training. Superordinate question task. The experimenter asked the child three yes/no questions of the form “Is a(n) X a kind of category name?” This question was asked for the two concepts trained earlier in the session and for the control concept for that session. Inference question task. The experimenter asked the child six yes/no questions (see Table 3). Two questions were asked for each of three concepts: the two concepts trained earlier in the session, and the control concept for that session. These questions required making an inference about the concept from information supplied during training. The answers to the inference questions were not explicitly given in any of the training conditions. RESULTS

Means for each training and control condition are reported separately by age and task in Table 4. Two repeated-measures MANOVAs were performed using percentage correct response on the four comprehension tasks as the multiple dependent measures. The transformation suggested by Winer (1962) for proportional data was not found to stabilize the variance of these data; therefore, untransformed data are used throughout. As preliminary results revealed no main effects or interpretable interactions involving sex or session number, these two factors are not included in the reported analyses. Analysis 1, a 2 (age) x 2 (presentation: picture or definition) x 2 (category: superordinate or not) design addressed hypotheses concerning the relative effects of age and the two training factors. Analysis 2, a 2 (age) x 5 (condition: verbal, verbal with superordinate. picture, picture with superordinate, control) design addressed the hypothesis that task performance given training was significantly better than performance in the control condition. Our first hypothesis concerned the effectiveness of our four training conditions in promoting concept formation. Analysis 2 shows that all

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TABLE INFERENCE

Does an armadillo fly? If a dog bites an armadillo,

3

QUESTIONS

will the dog hurt his teeth?

If you saw a plant that you didn’t know. would it be smart to ask a botanist’? Would you want to talk to a botanist about how to take care of your dog? Do you need a ball to play cat’s cradle? Do you need two hands to play cat’s cradle’? Do you blow into a concertina to make it make sounds’? Can you make a concertina longer and shorter? Can eels play catch? If you went swimming. would you maybe meet an eel’? Can a kiwi go where airplanes go? Can a kiwi get its beak to the bottom of a tall glass of water’? Would a farmer grow kohlrabi in the garden? Would you hunt kohlrabi with a bow and arrow’? Could you ride a paw-paw? Could you use a paw-paw if you were hungry’! Can a rickshaw win a race with a car’? Can a rickshaw take you from one place to another? Does a scythe belong in the kitchen’! Can you cut yourself with a scythe’? Does a settle belong in the bathroom’? Could you and your friend use a settle if you wanted to be next to each other when you watch TV’? Would water hurt a sou’wester? Would you want to wear a raincoat when you wear a sou’wester’? -

conditions could promote learning in some circumstances: whether or not a training condition was effective depended on the subjects’ age and the type of comprehension assessment made. The multivariate effect of condition was highly significant, A = .50, F(16, 260.32) = 4.17, p < .00005. Since the presence of a marginal multivariate age x condition interaction, A = .7.5. F(16, 260.32) = 1.58, p < .08. raised questions about the desirability of collapsing across age, a complex contrast between the four training conditions and the control condition was made separately for each age group. This contrast was highly significant for both age groups: for 3-year-olds. T' = 39.31, F(4, 19) = 8.49, p -C .0004; for 4year-olds. T' = 26.83, F(4, 19) = 5.79, p < ,003. Univariate follow-up tests of the multivariate contrasts achieved significance for the 3-yearold group on two tasks: recognition, F( 1, 88) = 9.24, p < .003; and transfer, F( 1, 88) = 6.21. p < .Ol; and the 4-year-old group on three

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PERFORMANCE

ON COMPREHENSION

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CONCEPTS

TABLE 4 TASKS AS A FUNCTION

OF TRAINING

CONDITION

AND AGE

Age Condition

3-year-olds

4-year-olds

Recognition Verbal Verbal Picture Picture Control

w superordinate w/o superordinate w superordinate w/o superordinate

54 25 71 79 29

Verbal Verbal Picture Picture Control

w superordinate w/o superordinate w superordinate w/o superordinate

33 29 75 54 25

Verbal Verbal Picture Picture Control

w superordinate w/o superordinate w superordinate w/o superordinate

Verbal Verbal Picture Picture Control

w superordinate w/o superordinate w superordinate w/o superordinate

task 54 71 83 79 48

Transfer

58 46 79 75 46

Superordinate 46 58 50 42 54 Inference

Note.

The

tabled

values

task

question

75 71 83 42 50 question

52 56 54 56 51 represent

mean

percentage

task

task 71 67 65 63 60

correct

response.

tasks: recognition, F(1, 88) = 6.70, p < .Oi; transfer. FtI, 88) = 4.15. p < .04; and superordinate question, F(1, 88) = 4.23, p < .04. t tests between specific training conditions and the corresponding control condition are reported in Table 5. These comparisons indicate which training conditions were effective in promoting performance on a particular comprehension task, about which we will say more in the discussion. Our second hypothesis was that ostensive learning ability remains stable during the preschool period, while intraverbal learning ability improves with age. Contrary to our expectations. Analysis 1 did not yield a significant age x presentation interaction. However, the presence of a multivariate age x category interaction, T’ = 13.29, F(4, 19) = 2.87, p < .05, suggests that children’s ability to benefit from the verbal provision of superordinate information does increase with age. Univariate followup tests of this interaction achieved significance for the superordinate

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AND TABLE

MATCHED-PAIRS

t TESTS ON DIFFERENCES

WHITEHURST 5

BETWEEN

TREATMENT

AND

Syear-olds

4-year-olds Recognition

Verbal Verbal Picture Picture

w superordinate w/o superordinate w superordinate w/o superordinate

~ control - control - control - control

x07*** 0.41 3.37*** 2.11*

Verbal Verbal Picture Picture

w superordinate w/o superordinate w superordinate w/o superordinate

~ control - control ~ control - control

3.17* 0.46 3.94*** ‘.68**

Verbal Verbal Picture Picture Note.

w superordinate w/o superordinate w superordinate w/o superordinate

~ control - control - control - control

Superordinate

All tests *I) < .05. * * p < .Ol. *** p < ,005.

task -0.23 2.03* ?.86** 3.04**

Transfer

-

SCORES

CONTROL

task

1.37 0.00 3.37*** 2.46* question

task 7 7(* .-._. I .w* 3.ei** 0.77

are one tailed.

question task, F( 1, 22) = 9.54. p < .005 (see Fig. 1). For the 4-yearold group, performance on the superordinate question task was better when superordinate information was given (M = 79%) than when such information was not given (M = 56%. F(1, 22) = 16.04, p < .OOl). Provision of superordinate information did not affect the performance of the 3-year-old group. Thus, the initial hypothesis must be modified to state that 3- and 4-year-olds show an equal ability to benefit from verbal definitions, but only 4-year-olds benefit from the verbal provision of superordinate information. Our third hypothesis was that pictorial information would benefit performance on the pictorially oriented recognition and transfer tasks, while definitional and category information would benefit performance on the verbally oriented inference and superordinate question tasks. Analysis 1 revealed a multivariate effect of presentation, T’ = 27.94, F(4. 19) = 6.03, p < ,003, favoring pictorial over definitional presentation. Univariate tests of the presentation effect were also significant for the recognition. F(1, 22) = 13.72, p < .OOl, and transfer tasks, F(1, 22) = 25.07, p < .OOOl. Thus, children tended to show higher absolute levels of performance following pictorial presentation, but as Analysis 2 reveals, intraverbal information was also effective in promoting performance on the recognition

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CONCEPTS

go80-

2

SuperordInate

70, /’

60-

No Superordlnate

; 50L ki u 406e

10 1

“0

4-Year-Olds

3-YearvOIds AGE

FIG.

1. Effects of age and category

information

on superordinate

question task

performance.

and transfer tasks (see Table 5). For the 3-year-olds, the verbal definition with superordinate information resulted in a significant degree of learning on both the recognition and transfer tasks; for the 4-year-olds, verbal definitions alone resulted in learning on the recognition task. The prediction that intraverbal information would benefit performance on the inference question task was not upheld; no training condition was effective in promoting learning on this task. The prediction that the verbal provision of superordinate information would be most beneficial on the superordinate question task was supported. A multivariate age x category information interaction, T' = 13.29, F(4, 19) = 2.87, p < .05, was significant at the univariate level for the superordinate question task, F(1, 22) = 9.54, p < ,005. No simple effect of category information was found for the 3-year-olds, while the simple effect of category information was quite significant for the 4-year-olds, F(1, 22) = 16.04, p < .OOl (see Fig. 1). For the 4-year-olds, performance given the superordinate information (M = 79%) was superior to performance when such information was not given (M = 56%). However, while providing superordinate information did result in the highest absolute level of performance, it must be noted that learning was also evident when given the verbal definition alone (see Table 5). In addition, no training condition involved category information in isolation; so while category information augmented

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performance on the superordinate question task, it cannot be said that category information alone is the only route through which children may acquire knowledge of superordinate category membership. DISCUSSION

This study demonstrates that preschool-aged children utilize a variety of information sources in the process of semantic concept formation; the relative effectiveness of pictorial and intraverbal information depends on the child’s age, the type of intraverbal information supplied, and the manner in which comprehension is assessed. Pictorial information produced the most accurate performance on the pictorially oriented recognition and transfer tasks. Children receiving pictorial training were later able to recognize the training picture. and could also select a novel picture of the same concept. Adding the verbal provision of superordinate category information to pictorial training did not enhance performance on the recognition task: adding this same bit of intraverbal information did increase performance on the transfer task. Thus, when children have seen a picture of a concept, telling them what category that concept belongs to does not make them better able to recognize the same picture in the future, but it does make them more likely to be able to classify correctly a new picture of the same concept. Purely intraverbal information was also effective in promoting concept formation, although intraverbal training led to lower absolute levels of task performance than did pictorial training. When 3-year-olds were given a verbal definition including superordinate information, they were able to select both recognition and transfer pictures. Four-year-olds could correctly select recognition pictures after being told the verbal definition alone. Thus. in some cases, even the youngest children were able to utilize purely intraverbal information to learn a novel concept. It is surprising that verbal information had a stronger facilitative effect on 3-year-old than on 4-year-old subjects. However, there is evidence that treatment gains were attenuated by a floor effect in the older age group. On both the recognition and transfer tasks. trials were presented in sets of four. It appears that 4-year-olds remembered their selections on previous trials and used a process of elimination in making successive responses; as a result the mean control performance of the 4-year-old group was considerably higher than the 25% correct expected as a result of random guessing. Thus. our data may well underestimate the potential utility of purely intraverbal information for the 4-year-old group. Results of the superordinate question task indicate that 3-year-olds did not show any benefits of training, while 4-year-olds benefited from all training conditions except picture information alone. For the 4-year-olds verbal definition with superordinate training was not more effective than the verbal definition alone, indicating that the verbal definition and not

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the superordinate category information was operative. In contrast, the category information did become operative when children saw pictures of novel concepts rather than hearing them defined; the picture plus superordinate condition resulted in learning, while the picture alone condition did not. There was no evidence that any training condition affected performance on the inference question task. It is unclear whether poor performance was due to deficiencies in the training provided, or to an inability of young children to make verbal inferences. Other studies have suggested that children may be able to make verbal inferences about verbally supplied material. Schmidt and Paris (1983) found an age-related increase in the ability to answer inferential questions about familiar story material in 5to 7-year-old children. Hawkins, Pea, Glick, and Scribner (1984) found that 4- and 5-year-olds demonstrate limited verbal deductive reasoning skills. Our 4-year-old subjects were able to answer a category membership question when told a verbal definition that did not include any category information; thus, they were capable of solving inferential questions about category membership although they did not show an ability to answer inferential questions about other properties of novel concepts. It is not the purpose of the present research to speculate on the form in which children represent semantic knowledge. Rather, we concur with researchers such as Anglin (1978) and Nelson (1985) who propose that children store various pieces of information, which, in their experience, are typical of a concept. This may include a perceptual prototype, a script or schema, the concept’s name, its individual instances, its actions, functions, and likely locations. A distinction is often made between individuals’ referential knowledge and their intensional knowledge. The latter type of knowledge is considered to be more flexible, logical, and less context bound (Nelson, 1985: Olson, 1977). Knowledge of synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, and part-whole relations are examples of intensional knowledge; it is proposed that this knowledge is acquired primarily through intraverbal rather than perceptual means, that it develops later than referential knowledge, that it is most often explicitly taught, and that it forms the basis of formal education (Nelson, 198.5; Olson, 1977; Whitehurst, 1979). Adult models of semantic knowledge and mental representation emphasize intensional relationships (e.g., Clark, 1973; Collins & Loftus, 1975; E. E. Smith, Shoben, & Rips, 1974; Sternberg, 1984). Thus. there are many reasons to be interested in when and how children acquire intensional knowledge. Results of this study indicate a correspondence between the type of information children received and the type of knowledge they acquired, with intraverbal information resulting in broader knowledge than pictorial information. Purely pictorial information was associated with extensional knowledge, allowing children to select both recognition and transfer stimuli.

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Purely pictorial information did not enhance intensional knowledge; after seeing a labeled picture, children could not correctly answer questions on the superordinate category or inference question tasks. Given purely intraverbal information, children could select previously unseen pictures of novel concepts and they could correctly identify a verbal statement of category membership; thus, intraverbal information enhanced both extensional and intensional knowledge. It has been suggested that young children do not coordinate extensional and intensional knowledge as well as adults (Anglin, 1978; Whitehurst, 1979). These results suggest that the provision of intraverbal information may allow preschoolers to transfer the intensional knowledge given to the extensional domain, while the reverse is less likely to occur. One reason why intrdverbal cues may be more useful is that they can explicitly draw the listener’s attention to important componential features; although these features may also be included in an ostensive stimulus, they may not be noted by the viewer, or may be noted but not marked as important or criterial. Clearly. intraverbal cues also provide information about semantic relations that are not discernible through perceptual means (e.g., that one’s urzclr is one’s parent’s brother). Several important questions remain unanswered by our study. First is the question of what constitutes optimal information for concept development . The potentially most informative combinations of information (picture plus verbal definition, or picture plus verbal definition plus category information) were not included as training conditions in this study. Although results from Martin and Olson (1971) would predict that combined stimulation of this form would not be more beneficial that either alone. such combined information provides a better analog of the information available to the child in his or her natural environment. Second, given that concept acquisition is a gradual process, it is possible that different types of information may be useful at different stages of acquisition. Carey (1977) suggests that children notice a novel word and store some rudimentary information about it on the basis of one or a few encounters; additional exposure to the word in situational and verbal contexts provides information used by the child to represent the word fully and accurately in the conceptual domain. Although Carey’s model suggests that intraverbal information would be more useful during a second stage of acquisition, additional research will be necessary to determine the extent to which the sequencing of verbal and pictorial information is important, and whether this varies with the child’s age or the type of semantic concept learned. Finally, Sternberg (1984) suggests that individuals who perform well on tests of verbal intelligence are highly skilled intraverbal learners. It may be that individual differences in the quality of intraverbal information supplied by parents and in the ability of preschoolers to profit from such information contribute to individual differences in verbal ability and relate

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to the ease with which children make the initial transition from the extensional, observationally based concepts of oral language to the intensional, formally based concepts of text and school (Olson, 1977). This study has demonstrated that intraverbal processes are operable at the early stages of semantic development. Attention to individual differences in preschoolers’ ability to profit from intraverbal cues may pay handsome dividends in the understanding of later differences and deficiencies in verbally based knowledge. REFERENCES Anglin, J. M. (1978). From reference to meaning. Child Developmenr. 49, 969-976. Anglin. J. M. (1979). The child’s first terms of reference. In N. R. Smith & M. B. Franklin (Eds.), Symbolic functioning in childhood (pp. 167-184). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Brown, R. (1959). Words and things. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Carey. S. (1977). The child as word learner. In M. Halle, J. Bresnan, & G. A. Miller (Eds.), Linguisfic theov and psychological reality (pp. 264-293). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Carroll, J., & White, M. (1973). Age-of-acquisition norms for 220 picturable nounds. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12, 563-576. Clark. E. V. (1973). What’s in a word? On the child’s acquisition of semantics in his first language. In T. E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive developmenr and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press. Collins. A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological

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REVISED:

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5, 1986