Disjunctive Concept Utilization in Preschool Children

Twenty-four children, eight each in three age groups, were asked to "play a game" which required them to utilize disjunctive concepts such as "blue or car." The disjunctive concepts used were the nine which can be formed by combining one value from among three possibilities on the color dimension (green, blue, red) with one value from among three possibilities on the form dimension (car, boat, airplane). The task consisted of 18 five-choice trials with each of the nine disjunctive concepts represented twice-once with the color mentioned first and once with the form mentioned first. Ss were required to pick the positive instance card. All three groups performed significantly better than chance (ps. < .0001) on the task. A significant relation between age and performance on this task was found (Rho = .65, p < .05). There were no sex differences. The results are discussed in relation to task variables and an associative view of cognitive development.