Inferring properties from categories versus inferring categories from properties: the case of gender

The present study tested a distinction between inferring new categories on the basis of property information (predicted to be difficult) and inferring new properties on the basis of category information (predicted to be easier). One group of preschoolers learned new properties for specific boys and girls and was asked to say which property a new child would have, given a gender label that conflicted with the child's appearance. Other children saw the identical stimuli but were to classify them as "boy" or "girl" when given a sex-linked property that conflicted with appearance. All children were also tested on gender constancy. As predicted, children performed poorly on gender constancy and the classification task but accurately inferred many sex-linked properties on the basis of category membership, ignoring conflicting perceptual information. Control conditions support the claim that these effects are not due to differential memory demands in the different conditions. Future research should distinguish between using a category as the basis for making property inferences and the developmentally later skill of classifying an object by using property information. Preschoolers can ignore conflicting perceptual information much more easily on the former than on the latter task.