Type
of Material and Mental Size Comparison among Children
U. Sharma, A.K. Srivastava |
The
judgement time (RT) has been reported as inverse linear function
of the logarithm of the estimated difference in size of the animals.
A smaller size difference between animals is presumed to be represented
as a smaller difference between their internal analogues resulting
in decreased discriminability and increased judgement time. These
findings were considered consistent with the dual coding theory.
However, their developmental trends remain relatively less explored.
Total 60 children 20 each in 5-7, 7-9 and 9-11 years age group participated
in mental size comparison experiment. The results showed that pictorial
material produced fastest judgement followed by mixed (pictorial
+ verbal) material which produced faster judgement than verbal material.
The judgement latencies for all kinds of material decreased with
age. However, the superiority of pictorial over verbal material sustained
across different age levels of children. The findings were consistent
with the prediction of Dual Coding Theory (Paivio, 1971, 1978).
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