Abstraction and Categorization in African Children

Emic and Unfamiliar Category Sorting of Mano Farmers and U.S. Undergraduates

Mano farmers of Liberia, West Africa, and U.S. undergraduate men were tested on a rice-sorting task appropriate to the Mano cultural setting and an analogous card-sorting task appropriate to the U.S. cultural setting. U.S. Ss performed more card sorts than Mano Ss, while Mano Ss performed more rice sorts than U.S. Ss. A larger drop in performance level was associated with the use of an unfamiliar, as compared to an emic-or culturally appropriate-sorting task for the U.S. college students than for nonliterate Mano farmers. Both U.S. and Mano Ss most readily sorted by perceptually salient and unidimensional stimulus features and had difficulty shifting sorting dimensions, when tested with an unfamiliar task. U.S. men differed from Mano men in sorting more rapidly on both tasks, and in being more often able to describe verbally the basis for unfamiliar task sorts they had performed.