Role of geometric and figurative names in memorizing inductive rules in adults and primary schoolers

Abstract

Studying at school requires students to understand and memorize many new categories – inductive rules, which contain the commonalities of specific category examples. Studies indicate that verbal labels enhance learning and memorizing such inductive rules. However, it is not known whether the type of lexical labels plays a crucial role in these processes. The goal of this study was to compare different types of verbalization and their effect on retention and application by participants from different age groups. We conducted an experimental study where adult participants (N=50) and primary-school-age children (N=44) were asked to solve Bongard problems with different geometric inductive rules that they also needed to memorize. Each problem was presented with a rule either in geometric labels or in figurative labels depending on the experimental condition. Participants then transferred the rules on the problem solving. Adult participants in the group with figurative labels were found to transfer rules faster compared to the adult participants in the group with geometric labels. No such difference among experimental conditions was found for primary schoolers. Our results demonstrate the beneficial effect of figurative labels for tasks containing inductive rules. We also show that this effect is age dependent.