Influence of feature training on the formation of exemplar-specific representations in children with mental retardation

Whether exemplar-specific or prototype representations were primarily used by children with mild mental retardation in a categorization task consistin g of two groups of make-believe animals whose features were ill-defined was examined. Categorization performance of familiar, prototypic, and novel te st phase exemplars indicated that these children were able to acquire and u se both types of representations. A feature-labeling training procedure, ex pected to promote the formation of exemplar-specific representations prior to exemplar classification, was also incorporated within the current study' s design. It was unclear whether such training had any impact on the format ion of exemplar-specific representations.