A Developmental Study of Category Item Production

Abstract

ROSNER, SUE R., and HAYES, DONALD S. A Developmental Study of Category Item Production. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 1062-1065. The category item production task was used to obtain child norms and to investigate 2 alternative types of category bias reputedly shown by young children: (a) underinclusion of appropriate items; (b) overinclusion of inappropriate items. Preschool and grade school children produced verbal responses to four category labels: animals, furniture, clothes, and food. Judgments of category appropriateness (yes/no) made by college students for each response yielded nondichotomous scales of item-category appropriateness. The responses of the preschoolers were less appropriate than those of the grade school children, with relatively fewer items of high and medium appropriateness and more of low appropriateness represented in their output. These results imply that 2 types of category bias, underinclusion and overextension, are shown by the young child.