This Cat Has Nine Lives? Children's Memory for Genericity in Language

Autor/inn/en	Gelman, Susan A.; Raman, Lakshmi
Titel	This Cat Has Nine Lives? Children's Memory for Genericity in Language
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 43 (2007) 5, S.1256-1268 (13 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
Schlagwörter	Preschool Children; Sentences; Long Term Memory; Nouns; Phrase Structure; Recall (Psychology); Generalization; College Students; Age Differences + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Sentence analysis; Satzanalyse; Langzeitgedächtnis; Phrasenstruktur; Abberufung; Collegestudent; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied
Abstract	Generic noun phrases ("Birds lay eggs") are important for expressing knowledge about abstract kinds. The authors hypothesized that genericity would be part of gist memory, such that young children would appropriately recall whether sentences were presented as generic or specific. In 4 experiments, preschoolers and college students (N = 280) heard a series of sentences in either generic form (e.g., "Bears climb trees") or specific form (e.g., "This bear climbs trees") and were asked to recall the sentences following a 4-min distractor task. Participants in all age groups correctly distinguished between generic and specific noun phrases (NPs) in their recall, even when forgetting the details of the NP form. Memory for predicate content (e.g., "climb trees") was largely unaffected by genericity, although memory for category labels (e.g., "bear") was at times better for those who heard sentences with generic wording. Overall, these results suggest that generic form is maintained in long-term memory even for young children and thus may serve as the foundation for constructing knowledge about kinds. (Author).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10