Asymmetric effects on recognition of animate objects by children

The present study examined the effects of type of change in a picture (addition or deletion), and the effects of presentation time on children's recognition of animate objects (butterflies and cats). Five- or 6-yr.-old children viewed original pictures in a learning phase for 6 or 10 sec., and then they viewed in a test phase originals and altered pictures in which features were added to or deleted from original pictures. They were required to answer whether test stimuli had been seen before. Analysis showed that, although children discovered added features more frequently than deleted features in pictures of butterflies, they discovered deleted features more frequently than added features in pictures of cats (asymmetric recognition). Asymmetric recognition was not influenced by stimulus presentation time. Although asymmetric recognition was observed in children and adults for pictures of butterflies and cats, the feature for which alterations affected recognition was different. These results indicated that children process information about animate objects differently from that about inanimate objects and specifically by kind (domain-specific). The features to which children pay attention may change with development (age).