A Task

This study investigates the developmental changes that occur in the attending behavior of children engaged in a relatively simple,classification task, and attempts to reaffirm the existence of developmental changes in stimulus preferences and in the ability to emplgy double classification systems. Subjects vere 24 preschool and 24 first grade children from a middle class suburban school district. The children were presented with 18 geometric forms arranged in a 5 z 5 matrix and asked to collect all the stimuli that vent together and then to state how the stimuli were the same. After the child had completed the first trial, the stimuli were rearranged and the child vas reminded of the basis of his first collection and asked to put the stimuli together in another way. A scoring scale vas constructed based on the use of the horizontal plane and the use of a single stimulus attribute at a time. In general, data tend to reaffirm the existence of developmental changes in stimulus preference, and indicate a significant age effect in scanning., behavior. Findings.also.support the expected hierarchy of dimensional preferences: form, color, size. Relatively few children generated double classifications. All of the older children were able to classify on the basis of form and color and 75% classified on the basis of size. The younger children were unable to classify on the basis of size and, as expected, shoved a less clear preference for for as a stimulus dimension. (SB)