Differences in recognition and preference among four- and five-year-olds on a tactile learning and visual test.

Infants' preferential looking at novel objects and adults' preference for the familiar indicate that preference may be influenced by whether the objects have been experienced previously. Infants and adults may have opposite preferential tendencies; however, infants' preference for a familiar object which they have experienced orally casts doubt on this as a developmental process. To examine both the influences of experienced modalities and age on the relationship between preference and memory, tactile-visual preference and memory tests were employed in 4- and 5-yr.-olds. The results indicated the dissociation of preference by recognition only in 4-yr.-olds: those who recognized the objects preferred the familiar and the 4-yr.-olds who could not recognize them preferred the novel. The 5-yr.-olds tended to prefer the familiar objects regardless of recognition. The results may suggest an age effect on the relationship between preference and recognition.