Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Prior knowledge and exemplar encoding in children's concept acquisition.

C A Carmichael1, B K Hayes

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Callaghan NSW, Australia. carmicha@psychology.newcastle.edu.au

Child Development
|August 2, 2001
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

What matters when judging intentionality-moral content or normative status? Testing the rational scientist model of the side-effect.

Psychonomic bulletin & review·2017
Same author

HPLC methods for the fractionation and analysis of negatively charged oligosaccharides and gangliosides.

Current protocols in molecular biology·2008
Same author

Fractionation and analysis of neutral oligosaccharides by HPLC.

Current protocols in molecular biology·2008
Same author

Dissociating automatic and intentional processes in children's eyewitness memory.

Journal of experimental child psychology·2000
Same author

Protein O-GlcNAcylation: potential mechanisms for the regulation of protein function.

Advances in experimental medicine and biology·1998
Same author

Cognitive interviewing procedures and suggestibility in children's recall.

The Journal of applied psychology·1997
Same journal

An associative learning account of how saliva becomes a cue for comfort.

Child development·2026
Same journal

If moms do it, it can't be that important: Children's reasoning about gender disparities in domestic work.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Adapting under stress: How sociocultural stress intensity and fluctuation shape youth school engagement and internalizing symptoms.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Children across diverse societies exchange reasons to resolve disagreements.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Beyond resources: Children in India and Germany have a multifaceted concept of fairness.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Situating developmental science in cultural context: Lessons from the study of Asian-heritage children.

Child development·2026
See all related articles

Children

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Concept Acquisition
  • Child Psychology

Background:

  • Understanding how children acquire concepts is crucial for educational practices.
  • Prior knowledge and direct observation of examples are key factors in learning.
  • The interplay between existing beliefs and new information shapes conceptual understanding.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the interaction between children's prior domain knowledge and exemplar observation during concept acquisition.
  • To examine how exposure to novel exemplars influences the revision of children's conceptual knowledge.
  • To assess age-related differences in sensitivity to feature covariation and reliance on prior knowledge.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments involving 4 to 10-year-old children (N=480 total).

Related Experiment Videos

  • Children were presented with fictitious categories (animals, artifacts, social) with varying consistency to prior knowledge.
  • Feature co-occurrence judgments were used to assess concept formation and knowledge revision.

    • Main Results:

    • Both prior knowledge and exemplar observation independently influenced children's categorization judgments.
    • Older children (10-year-olds) showed greater sensitivity to observed feature covariation.
    • Increased exposure to larger categories enhanced the impact of observed feature covariation, reducing reliance on prior knowledge.

    Conclusions:

    • Children's concept acquisition is a dynamic process influenced by both pre-existing knowledge and empirical evidence.
    • Sensitivity to statistical regularities in the environment increases with age.
    • Learning environments that provide sufficient exemplars can effectively moderate the influence of prior beliefs.