Preschool Children's Difficulty Understanding the Types of Information Obtained through the Five Senses

• Published in: Child development Vol. 72; no. 3; pp. 803 - 815
• Main Authors: O'Neill, Daniela K., Chong, Selena
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, USA and Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishers Inc 01.05.2001; Blackwell Publishers; Blackwell; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Age Differences; Age groups; Attention; Auditory Perception; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Child psychology; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Cognition and Language; Cognitive Development; Concept Formation; Developmental psychology; Discrimination Learning; Dolls; Experimentation; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Games; Gustatory Sense; Humans; Information processing; Knowledge; Learning; Legal objections; Male; Memory; Olfactory Sense; Perception; Preschool Children; Problem Solving; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Sensation; Sense organs; Senses; Sensory Experience; Sensory perception; Sensory processes; Tactual Perception; Toys; Visual Perception; Young children; Human; Preschool age; Metacognition; Cognition; Experimental study; Tactile sensitivity; Hearing; Gustation; Vision; Olfaction; Perception; Cognitive development; Child
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00316
• ISSN: 0009-3920

Two studies explored 3- and 4-year-olds' (N = 60) understanding that the five senses can each lead to different types of knowledge. In Study 1, 40 children engaged in five scenarios in which they could only perform one sensory action to identify the property of an object (e. g., color, scent). After performing the action, children were asked how they found out the property and to show the experimenter how they had found it out. Using a Mr. Potato Head doll, children were also asked to indicate the sensory organ the doll would need to use to identify the property. In Study 2, 20 children presented with five Mr. Potato Head dolls, each sporting only one sensory organ (e. g., a nose), were asked which Mr. Potato Head could find out the property in question. The 3-year-olds performed significantly poorer than the 4-year-olds on all tasks, suggesting a marked transition in children's ability to recognize the origin of their modality-specific knowledge during the time period between 3 and 4 years of age.