WHAT DOES A WORD ALTER? THE EFFECT OF CONCEPTUAL NETWORKS ON THE DIMENSIONAL CHANGE SORTING TASK

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to examine the cognitive flexibility of three-year-olds, who usually persevere in the Dimensional Change Card Sort task, when a constant representation was referred in the classic instruction. In accordance with this purpose, the Dimensional Change Pencil Sort task was developed and used in the current study that 13 three-year-olds participated in. Findings seemed to support partially the hypothesis predicted that the kids could achieve the task in terms of rule use and mental representational flexibilities between length and color at the post switch phase in which situation classification dimensions were referred over a real and constant object (pencil) instead of a card. This result drew attention to the conceptual and perceptual mediation roles of language and objects respectively in terms of the cognitive flexibility literature.