Monolingual and bilingual children's use of mutual exclusivity in the naming of whole objects

In two experiments, the use of mutual exclusivity in the naming of whole objects was examined in monolingual and bilingual 3- and 6-year-olds. Once an object has a known name, then via principles of mutual exclusivity it is often assumed that a new name given to the object must refer to some part, substance, or other property of the object. However, because bilingual children must suspend mutual exclusivity assumptions between languages, they may be more willing to accept two names for an object within a language. In the current research, the use of mutual exclusivity in the naming of whole objects was found across monolingual and bilingual children, although older bilingual children were significantly less inclined to use mutual exclusivity than were older monolingual children. These results are discussed in terms of differences in monolingual and bilingual children's word learning.     

Late talkers show no shape bias in a novel name extension task

By 2½ years of age, children typically show a shape bias in object naming – that is, they extend object names mostly to new instances with the same shape. The acquisition of a shape bias is related to a marked increase in the rate of object name learning. This study asks whether, conversely, children who do not readily acquire new object names lack a shape bias. Twelve 2- to 3-year-old ‘late talkers’– children whose total vocabularies rank below the 30th percentile for their age – were compared with age-matched children with larger vocabularies in a novel object name extension task. The controls extended novel names across novel objects with the same shape. The late talkers showed no group perceptual bias, but many individuals extended novel names across objects with the same surface texture. The implications of the results both for the role of attentional biases in object name learning and for the etiology of some late talking are discussed.      

Speech planning during multiple-object naming: Effects of ageing

Two experiments were conducted with younger and older speakers. In Experiment 1, participants named single objects that were intact or visually degraded, while hearing distractor words that were phonologically related or unrelated to the object name. In both younger and older participants naming latencies were shorter for intact than for degraded objects and shorter when related than when unrelated distractors were presented. In Experiment 2, the single objects were replaced by object triplets, with the distractors being phonologically related to the first object's name. Naming latencies and gaze durations for the first object showed degradation and relatedness effects that were similar to those in single-object naming. Older participants were slower than younger participants when naming single objects and slower and less fluent on the second but not the first object when naming object triplets. The results of these experiments indicate that both younger and older speakers plan object names sequentially, but that older speakers use this planning strategy less efficiently.     

Speech planning during multiple-object naming: effects of ageing

Two experiments were conducted with younger and older speakers. In Experiment 1, participants named single objects that were intact or visually degraded, while hearing distractor words that were phonologically related or unrelated to the object name. In both younger and older participants naming latencies were shorter for intact than for degraded objects and shorter when related than when unrelated distractors were presented. In Experiment 2, the single objects were replaced by object triplets, with the distractors being phonologically related to the first object's name. Naming latencies and gaze durations for the first object showed degradation and relatedness effects that were similar to those in single-object naming. Older participants were slower than younger participants when naming single objects and slower and less fluent on the second but not the first object when naming object triplets. The results of these experiments indicate that both younger and older speakers plan object names sequentially, but that older speakers use this planning strategy less efficiently.     

Age of acquisition for naming and knowing: A new hypothesis

This paper reports an investigation into the age of acquisition of object names and object knowledge in a cross-sectional study of 288 children aged between 3 years 7 months and 11 years 6 months, comprising equal numbers of boys and girls. The objects belonged to four categories: animals, fruit and vegetables, implements, and vehicles. They were presented in three image types: line drawings, black-and-white photographs, and coloured photographs. In the knowledge test, five probe questions were asked for each object given the spoken name. Results showed that line drawings were more difficult to name than either black-and-white photographs or coloured photographs, which did not differ. The boys significantly out-performed the girls at naming and knowing, both overall and specifically for the category of vehicles. Naming and knowledge increased steadily with age but while young children below about 6 years 6 months showed an advantage to naming, older children showed an advantage to knowing. Similarly, age-of-acquisition measures for each item revealed a significant shift in the relationship between naming and knowing at around 80 months. We argue that differences in learning experience lead younger and older children to associate object names with different types of information, and we suggest that this difference probably accounts for the age-of-acquisition effects reported in adult object naming.     

Word-finding as a function of stimulus context: Children compared with aphasic adults

A study of object naming in 202 children, aged 5–11 years, demonstrated that varying the stimulus context affected the level of response accuracy. From age 6 to 10, completing a sentence with a noun (auditory) yielded the lowest error scores, naming objects upon hearing a definition (also auditory) produced most errors, while responding with names to pictured objects was of intermediate difficulty. This is the same order of object naming difficulty found in adult aphasic patients. Children older than 10 do not appear to be affected by stimulus context in their object naming. Results are discussed in terms of the relative syntactic difficulty of the two auditory conditions, the unexpected sex differences, and the “aphaseoid” naming errors of children.     

Age of acquisition for naming and knowing: a new hypothesis

This paper reports an investigation into the age of acquisition of object names and object knowledge in a cross-sectional study of 288 children aged between 3 years 7 months and 11 years 6 months, comprising equal numbers of boys and girls. The objects belonged to four categories: animals, fruit and vegetables, implements, and vehicles. They were presented in three image types: line drawings, black-and-white photographs, and coloured photographs. In the knowledge test, five probe questions were asked for each object given the spoken name. Results showed that line drawings were more difficult to name than either black-and-white photographs or coloured photographs, which did not differ. The boys significantly out-performed the girls at naming and knowing, both overall and specifically for the category of vehicles. Naming and knowledge increased steadily with age but while young children below about 6 years 6 months showed an advantage to naming, older children showed an advantage to knowing. Similarly, age-of-acquisition measures for each item revealed a significant shift in the relationship between naming and knowing at around 80 months. We argue that differences in learning experience lead younger and older children to associate object names with different types of information, and we suggest that this difference probably accounts for the age-of-acquisition effects reported in adult object naming.     

Object perception and object naming in early development

Among our most fundamental capacities are those that allow us to perceive, categorize and name objects. Recently, controversy has surrounded the question of how young children learn names for objects, in particular, the relative roles of perception and higher-level world knowledge. It is well known that adults depend strongly on conceptual knowledge in a variety of categorization tasks, including object naming. We argue, however, that perception may play a special role in early object naming and, in particular, that certain kinds of world knowledge known to guide adult naming may come to guide naming only rather late in development. Building early mechanisms of naming on a perceptual foundation that may be encapsulated, and thus shut off from more reflective processes, may explain in part why young children can easily and rapidly learn names for things from the adults around them, despite the fact that adults and children may possess very different conceptual organizations.     

Comparison Facilitates Children's Learning of Names for Parts

Learning names for parts of objects can be challenging for children, as it requires overcoming their tendency to name whole objects. We test whether comparing items can facilitate learning names for their parts. Applying the structure-mapping theory of comparison leads to two predictions: (a) young children will find it easier to identify a common part between two very similar items than between two dissimilar items (because the similar pair is easier to align); (b) close alignments potentiate far alignments: children will be better able to extend a novel part name to a dissimilar object after having extended it to a similar object. In three studies, 227 preschool children mapped novel part terms to new animals or objects. Both predictions were confirmed. Children more accurately extended novel part terms to objects that were similar to the standard than to objects that were dissimilar (Experiments 1 and 2), and children more accurately extended novel part names to dissimilar objects after having extended them to similar objects (Experiment 3). We conclude that structure-mapping processes can support part learning.     

Memory for proper names in old age: A disproportionate impairment?

A common complaint of older adults is that they have trouble remembering names, even the names of people they know well. Two experiments examining this problem are reported in the present article. Experiment 1 tested episodic memory for surnames and occupations; older adults and younger adults under divided attention performed less well than did full attention younger adults, but showed no disproportionate loss of name information. Experiment 2 examined the ability to name photographs of public figures and of uncommon objects; this experiment therefore tested retrieval from semantic memory. In this case adults in their 70s did show an impairment in recall of names of known people, but not of known objects. Further analyses revealed systematic relations between naming, recognition, and rated familiarity of the categories used. Familiarity largely determined the proportions of recognizable items that were named in a prior phase. Overall, little evidence was found for a disproportionate age-related impairment in naming in either episodic or semantic memory.     

Is naming faces different from naming objects? Semantic interference in a face- and object-naming task

A current debate regarding face and object naming concerns whether they are equally vulnerable to semantic interference. Although some studies have shown similar patterns of interference, others have revealed different effects for faces and objects. In Experiment 1, we compared face naming to object naming when exemplars were presented in a semantically homogeneous context (grouped by their category) or in a semantically heterogeneous context (mixed) across four cycles. The data revealed significant slowing for both face and object naming in the homogeneous context. This semantic interference was explained as being due to lexical competition from the conceptual activation of category members. When focusing on the first cycle, a facilitation effect for objects but not for faces appeared. This result permits us to explain the previously observed discrepancies between face and object naming. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, with the exception that half of the stimuli were presented as face/object names for reading. Semantic interference was present for both face and object naming, suggesting that faces and objects behave similarly during naming. Interestingly, during reading, semantic interference was observed for face names but not for object names. This pattern is consistent with previous assumptions proposing the activation of a person identity during face name reading.     

Cognitive components of naming in children: effects of referential uncertainty and stimulus realism.

The ease of picture naming in children was assessed as a function of two stimulus characteristics: (a) the number of available correct names for a picture (referential uncertainty) and (b) the degree to which a picture realistically represents the depicted object (stimulus realism). Two experiments employing different methods demonstrated that: (a) children named low uncertainty objects (those with a single dominant name, e.g., key, elephant) faster than high uncertainty objects (those with multiple possible correct names, e.g., lamp/light, stove/oven) and (b) this uncertainty effect arose at a stage of naming subsequent to object identification. Possible underlying mechanisms for the uncertainty effect include passive diffusion of activation over multiple object-name pathways or active inhibition among competing candidate names. Stimulus realism (colored photographs vs uncolored line drawings) did not consistently influence naming performance. Implications for understanding children's naming behavior are discussed.     

Factors influencing the response latencies of subnormal children in naming pictures

The times taken to name 56 drawings of objects on five separate occasions were analysed for 21 ESN(M) and 21 ESN(S) children, matched for picture-naming vocabulary. The ESN(S) group not only had a higher mean response latency but also showed greater inter- and intra-subject variance. Nine objects were selected whose names have a Thorndike-Lorge language frequency of 50 words per million or greater, and nine others were selected with a frequency of less than 50 words per million. Each object was drawn in two ways, one giving a two-dimensional outline with the addition of important detail, the other drawing also incorporating cues indicating the depth of the object. An analysis of variance of the children's latencies in naming the selected 36 pictures of 18 objects over five trials indicated that the method of drawing had no effect upon naming latencies. Pictures with high-frequency names were named faster than those with lower frequency names, the ESN(S) group showing a greater rate of increase in naming latency for the lower frequency words than the ESN(M) children. Results were discussed in terms of the Oldfield and Lachman models of lexical memory storage and of the search processes required for the retrieval of names.     

Word Learning and Attention Allocation Based on Word Class and Category Knowledge

Attention allocation in word learning may vary developmentally based on the novelty of the object. It has been suggested that children differentially learn verbs based on the novelty of the agent, but adults do not because they automatically infer the object's category and thus treat it like a familiar object. The current research examined whether adults and children differentially learn words or attend to objects without access to category knowledge in a relatively difficult (Experiment 1, adult n = 54, child n = 66) and a relatively easy task (Experiment 2, adult n = 88, child n = 62). Results show that category knowledge affects noun and verb extension for children but not adults and that adults similarly attended to objects when learning a verb regardless of category knowledge. These findings highlight the importance of investigating how word class, attention allocation, and categorical inference interact across development. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“Higher” and “lower”: Comparative and categorical interpretations by children

Three-, four-, and five-year-old children's categorical and comparative understanding of high and low were examined in two experiments. Categorical knowledge was assessed by presenting subjects with a single object at varying heights (from 0 to five feet above the ground), and asking if the object was high or low. Comparative understanding of the terms was assessed by showing children two objects at a time and asking which was higher or lower. We observed two patterns of performance in children's categorical treatments: younger children in particular defined disjoint categories for high and low such that they only labelled the extreme heights as high or low, and maintained that middle heights were neither high nor low. Older children defined either-or categories such that all heights were labelled either high or low. We also found that children who defined either-or categories made correct comparative judgments across the entire range of variation whereas children who defined disjoint categories could only judge which of two objects was higher if the objects were not low (at 0 and 1 feet) and which of the objects was lower if the objects were not high (at 4 and 5 feet). The results were interpreted as reflecting a lack of appreciation that the terms are interdefined as negations of each other, and were discussed in terms of the similar semantic-congruity effects found in adults.     

Naming and Exclaiming: Infants' Sensitivity to Naming Contexts

In three experiments, we examined 17-month-olds' acquisition of novel symbols (words and gestures) as names for object categories. Experiment 1 compares infants' extension of novel symbols when they are presented within a familiar naming phrase (e.g., "Look at this [symbol]!") versus presented alone (e.g., "Look! ... [symbol]!") Infants mapped novel gestures successfully in both naming contexts. However, infants mapped novel words only within the context of familiar naming phrases. Thus, although infants can learn both words and gestures, they have divergent expectations about the circumstances under which the 2 symbolic forms name objects. Experiments 2 and 3 test the hypothesis that infants' expectations about the circumstances under which words that name objects are acquired by monitoring how adults indicate their intention to name. By employing a training paradigm, these two experiments demonstrated that infants can infer how an experimenter signals his or her intention to name an object on the basis of a very brief training experience.     

THE BACON not the bacon: how children and adults understand accented and unaccented noun phrases

Two eye-tracking experiments examine whether adults and 4- and 5-year-old children use the presence or absence of accenting to guide their interpretation of noun phrases (e.g., the bacon) with respect to the discourse context. Unaccented nouns tend to refer to contextually accessible referents, while accented variants tend to be used for less accessible entities. Experiment 1 confirms that accenting is informative for adults, who show a bias toward previously-mentioned objects beginning 300 ms after the onset of unaccented nouns and pronouns. But contrary to findings in the literature, accented words produced no observable bias. In Experiment 2, 4 and 5 year olds were also biased toward previously-mentioned objects with unaccented nouns and pronouns. This builds on findings of limits on children's on-line reference comprehension [Arnold, J. E., Brown-Schmidt, S., & Trueswell, J. C. (2007). Children's use of gender and order-of-mention during pronoun comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes], showing that children's interpretation of unaccented nouns and pronouns is constrained in contexts with one single highly accessible object.