Developmental changes in the precision of visual concept knowledge

This study examined the development of visual concept knowledge in children aged 3-14 and adults. Participants played a game where they matched words (e.g., "swordfish") to corresponding images, with distractors varying in linguistic similarity. The results showed a gradual improvement in identifying the correct image, as younger children were more likely to choose unrelated distractors. This suggests that children initially have partial knowledge of visual concepts, which becomes more refined over time by integrating linguistic and visual information. The findings shed light on the transition from coarse to fine-grained representations of visual concepts during development.