Holistic and analytic modes in classification learning of young children

Abstract

To examine the factors underlying children's categorization modes (holistic vs. analytic) and ease of classification learning, 5-6 year-olds were given a classification task of schematic faces with two values in each of five dimensions. The tasks varied on the similarity between sample and learning exemplars (high vs. low) and the number of categories to be classified (one vs. two), and could classify either by holistic or analytic mode. The subjects were trained on one of the four tasks and tested the categorization modes after reaching each of three learning criteria (4/4, 8/8, and 8/8+8 correct). The results showed that (a) with increasing training trials, the number of subjects who used the analytic mode increased while that who used the holistic mode decreased, (b) the number of subjects who used the analytic mode was greater for the low-similarity than the high-similarity tasks, and (c) the task with two categories was learned faster than that with one category.