Cultural deprivation and the relative preferences of preschool children for complex and novel stimuli.

To determine their relative effects, the preferences of 19 deprived and 21 non-deprived preschoolers for both complex stimuli and novel stimuli was measured. The deprived children showed a lack of preference for the novel stimuli but did not differ from the non-deprived group in their preference for complexity. These data clarified a confounding of these stimulus dimensions which had occurred in previous studies.