A SET TO ESTABLISH EQUIVALENCE RELATIONS IN PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN

Sixty-four children, aged 3 1 2-5 years, were given a single trial on a task demanding the association of categorically related nouns, presented in random order, to pictures representing human-beings, clothes, parts of the body, food, and tableware. They were allocated to one of three groups matched for age and low score, or to a group of higher age and score. Two of the three matched groups were trained for 10 trials on a task in which four categories (animals, furniture, vehicles, buildings) had to be differentiated. The same stimulus words were used in both training conditions, but in one case they were presented initially in categorically related clusters, while in the second condition presentation was invariably random. On transfer, Ss who had been trained with words presented in clusters showed a significant advantage over the other experimental Ss and both control groups. The results are interpreted as showing how conditions of training may modify a young child's natural style of response to a conceptual task and provide a shortcut for some part of his development of equivalence relations. © 1969.