Adjectives or nouns to refer to objects: effects on the complementation and inclusion performance of 6- to 9-year-old...

Due to the exclusivity bias (a given object is considered to have only one generic name), inclusion problem solving by children should be adversely affected by the use of nouns rather than adjectives to refer to objects. In contrast, the children's complementation behavior should be facilitated, because naming promotes the organization of objects into additive subclasses under a generic class. Groups of children 6 to 9 years old were asked to solve complementation and inclusion problems about a set of objects designated by nouns or by real or nonsensical adjectives. The results showed that complementation performance was indeed enhanced by the use of nouns, but inclusion behavior was not affected by the type of term used.