Linguistic labels: Conceptual markers or object features?

Linguistic labels affect inductive generalization; however, the mechanism underlying these effects remains unclear. According to one similarity-based model, SINC (similarity, induction, naming, and categorization), early in development labels are features of objects contributing to the overall similarity of compared entities, with early induction being similarity based. If this is the case, then not only identical but also phonologically similar labels may contribute to the overall similarity and thus to induction. These predictions were tested in a series of experiments with 5-year-olds and adults. In Experiments 1-5 participants performed a label extension task, whereas in Experiment 6 they performed a feature induction task. Results indicate that phonological similarity contributes to early induction and support the notion that for young children labels are features of objects. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

语言标签影响归纳概括；然而，这些影响背后的机制仍不清楚。根据一种基于相似性的模型——SINC（相似性、归纳、命名和分类），在发展早期，标签是物体的特征，有助于被比较实体的整体相似性，早期归纳是基于相似性的。如果是这样的话，那么不仅相同的标签，而且语音相似的标签也可能有助于整体相似性，进而有助于归纳。这些预测在对5岁儿童和成人进行的一系列实验中得到了检验。在实验1 - 5中，参与者执行了标签扩展任务，而在实验6中，他们执行了特征归纳任务。结果表明，语音相似性有助于早期归纳，并支持了对于幼儿来说标签是物体特征这一观点。(C) 2011爱思唯尔公司。保留所有权利。