The role of action and event structure in children's early conceptual development: Acquiring novel concepts under controlled conditions.

摘要

In order to examine the importance of action and events for facilitating object concept development, 2- and 3-year-old children were shown novel objects (toy tools) under one of three conditions. In the action condition, the tools were named, functionally described and used in guided play. In the event condition the same tools were named and described but were used together in an organized goal-based event (building a toy robot). The control group received equivalent verbal input but were not allowed to interact with the tools.;Overall, children in the event and action conditions performed better on three outcome measures (label production, recognition, and object generalization) than control children but not significantly different from each other. Two-year-olds, however, learned more in the event than action condition whereas 3-year-olds learned equally well in both experimental conditions. An analysis of the amount and type of interactions that the children had with the objects during a free play session did not account for these differences. The results support the theorization that very young children's knowledge is more event-based and with age and experience becomes more decontextualized.