Philip Zelazo - Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) Task

Описание: On the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task, each card contains a simple drawing of a familiar object (such as a truck or star) in a primary color (Zelazo, Frye, & Rapus, 1996). Children 3 years of age can sort the cards flawlessly by color or shape. When asked to switch from sorting by color to sorting by shape (or vice versa), however, most 3-year-olds do not switch; they continue to sort as they had before. This is striking because the experimenter makes a point of saying that the sorting criterion has changed and before every trial either reminds the child of the sorting rules (e.g., "We are playing the color game now, and in the color game, red ones go here and blue ones go there") or asks the child where the red ones (or trucks) and where the blue ones (or stars) go, and the child points correctly. Children of 3 years thus err despite knowing and remembering the rules. This was first observed by Zelazo and colleagues (Zelazo et al., 1996) and has been observed in other laboratories in the United States (Kirkham et al., 2003; Munakata & Yerys, 2001), Austria (Kloo & Perner, 2005; Perner & Lang, 2002), Canada (Bialystok & Martin, 2004; Jacques, Zelazo, Kirkham, & Semcesen, 1999; Zelazo, Mueller, Frye, & Marcovitch, 2003), England (Riggs & Williams, 2003; Towse, Redbond, Houston-Price, & Cook, 2000), and Scotland (Rennie, Bull, & Diamond, 2004).

Source: Diamond, A., Carlson, S. M., & Beck, D. (2005). Preschool children's performance in task switching on the Dimensional Change Card Sorting task: Separating the dimensions aids the ability to switch. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28, 689 -- 729