Are Lions and Tigers Substitutes or Associates? Evidence against Slot Filler Accounts of Children's Early Categorization

Abstract

Items in event-based categorical relations, or "slot fillers," have been found to be recalled better by children than items in a taxonomic relation. This has been used as evidence that children's memory is organized around script-based representations rather than taxonomic structures. Others have attributed the superior recall of slot fillers to association and typicality rather than memory structure per se. This study was designed to see if the slot filler advantage remains when association and typicality were controlled for. Forty-five 3- to 4-year-olds were tested using a cued recall procedure in which typicality and association were varied for slot filler versus taxonomic coordinate lists of items. Only children receiving the typical + high association slot filler list showed significantly better recall than the taxonomic coordinate list. There were no differences between the atypical + low association slot filler list and the taxonomic coordinate list. These results suggest that the slot filler advantage can be attributed to the more traditional mechanisms of association and typicality.