The results of this experiment revealed striking developmental differences between 2-year-old
children’s and adults’ memory for perceptual features of objects. That is, on the group level, 2-
year-olds did not demonstrate differences in memory performance across the perceptual features,
but adults did demonstrate differences in memory performance. At what point in development
would we observe differences in memory performance for perceptual features on the group level?
One possibility is that, across early childhood, there is a co-development of the shape bias and memory
that produces the relation between memory performance and categorization. As more children
develop a shape bias across early childhood, we should observe more noticeable differences in memory
performance for perceptual features of objects. In this case, we may observe an adult-like pattern
of performance (i.e., better memory performance for shape than for color and size on the group
level) by the end of early childhood. This finding would provide further evidence that the development
of the shape bias is related to differences in memory for perceptual features of objects. Alternatively,
changes in memory performance for perceptual features of objects may be a result of a
more gradual developmental process such as general improvements in cognitive abilities (i.e.,
age). In this case, we would not expect to observe an adult-like pattern of performance by the
end of early childhood, when most children demonstrate a shape bias. Experiment 2 was designed
to elucidate developmental differences in children’s memory for perceptual features of objects to
examine these possibilities.