Perceptual complexity and form class cues in novel word extension tasks: how 4-year-old children interpret adjectives and count nouns

Two experiments examined the role of perceptual complexity, object familiarity and form class cues on how children interpret novel adjectives and count nouns. Four-year-old children participated in a forced-choice match-to-target task in which an exemplar was named with a novel word and children were asked to choose another one that matched the exemplar in either shape or material In experiment 1, 56 children were provided with lexical form class cues suggestive of adjectives. The results of Experiment 1 showed that perceptual complexity and not object familiarity determined whether children made material or shape matches. In Experiment 2, 56 children were provided with lexical form class cues suggestive of count nouns. The results of Experiment 2 showed that neither perceptual complexity nor object familiarity affected children's selections in the matching task. When provided with lexical form class cues suggestive of a count noun, children selected shape matches. Thus the results suggest that the perceptual properties of the objects presented to children coupled with the particular lexical form class cue determine which features of objects children attend to when interpreting novel words.     

Knowing what a novel word is not: Two-year-olds 'listen through' ambiguous adjectives in fluent speech

Three studies investigated how 24-month-olds and adults resolve temporary ambiguity in fluent speech when encountering prenominal adjectives potentially interpretable as nouns. Children were tested in a looking-while-listening procedure to monitor the time course of speech processing. In Experiment 1, the familiar and unfamiliar adjectives preceding familiar target nouns were accented or deaccented. Target word recognition was disrupted only when lexically ambiguous adjectives were accented like nouns. Experiment 2 measured the extent of interference experienced by children when interpreting prenominal words as nouns. In Experiment 3, adults used prosodic cues to identify the form class of adjective/noun homophones in string-identical sentences before the ambiguous words were fully spoken. Results show that children and adults use prosody in conjunction with lexical and distributional cues to ‘listen through’ prenominal adjectives, avoiding costly misinterpretation.     

Young children's use of range-of-reference information in word learning

An important source of information about a new word's meaning (and its associated lexical class) is its range of reference: the number of objects to which it is extended. Ninety toddlers (mean age = 37 months) participated in a study to determine whether young children can use this information in word learning. When a novel word was presented with unambiguous lexical class cues as either a proper name (i.e. 'His name is DAXY') or an adjective (i.e. 'He is very DAXY'), toddlers interpreted it appropriately, regardless of whether it was applied to one or both members of a pair of identical-looking stuffed animals. They restricted a proper name to the designated animal(s); but they generalized an adjective from the labeled animal(s) to a new animal bearing the same property. However, when the word was presented with no specific lexical class cues (i.e. 'DAXY'), toddlers made significantly different interpretations, depending on the number of referents. When the word was applied to one animal, they restricted it to that animal (consistent with a proper name interpretation); when the word was applied to two animals, they generalized it to a new animal with the property (consistent with an adjective or a restricted count noun interpretation). Range-of-reference information thus provided toddlers with a default cue to the meaning (and associated lexical class) of a novel word.     

Adjectives really do modify nouns: the incremental and restricted nature of early adjective acquisition

By 24 months, most children spontaneously and correctly use adjectives. Yet prior laboratory research that has studied lexical acquisition in young children reports that children up to 3-years-old map novel adjectives to object properties only in very limited situations (Child Development 59 (1988) 411; Child Development 64 (1993) 1651; Child Development 71 (2000) 649; Developmental Psychology 36 (2000) 571; Child Development 69 (1998) 1313). In Experiments 1 and 2 we introduced 36-month-olds (Experiment 1) and 24-month-olds (Experiment 2) to novel adjectives while providing rich referential and syntactic information to indicate what the novel words mean. Specifically, we used a given novel adjective to describe multiple familiar objects which shared a salient property; in addition we used the adjectives in full noun phrases, not in conjunction with pronouns. Under these conditions, both groups mapped novel adjectives onto object properties. In Experiment 3 we asked whether the rich referential information was responsible for the successful outcome of the previous two experiments; we introduced novel adjectives to 2- and 3-year-olds as in Experiments 1 and 2, but the adjectives modified nouns of vague (very general) reference ("one", or "thing"). Under these conditions the children failed. We suggest that young word learners require access to the taxonomy of the object type so that the relevant property can be identified. The taxonomically specific nouns of Experiments 1 and 2 accomplish this, whereas the more general, semantically bleached nominals in Experiment 3 do not. Taken together with related findings in the literature, these findings favor an account of lexical acquisition in which layers of information become available incrementally, as a consequence of solving prior parts of the learning problem.     

Two-year-olds' sensitivity to speakers' intent: an alternative account of Samuelson and Smith

Seventy-two 2-year-olds participated in a study designed to test two competing accounts of the effect of contextual change on children's ability to learn a word for an object. The mechanistic account hypothesizes that any change in context that highlights a target object will lead to word learning; the social-pragmatic account maintains that a change in context must be perceived as relevant to the speaker's communicative intentions. Consistent with the latter account, we found that children learned the word when a change in context was intentional but not when it was accidental, and children failed to learn the word for the highlighted object when a speaker naive to the preceding context named the object.     

Hot dogs and zavy cats: preschoolers' and adults' expectations about familiar and novel adjectives

In recent years, a growing body of research has begun to examine the processes that underlie young children's acquisition of adjectival meanings. In the present studies, we examined whether preschoolers' willingness to extend adjectives was influenced by the type of property labeled by familiar adjectives (Experiment 1) and by semantic information conveyed in the sentence used to introduce novel adjectives (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, we examined preschoolers' and adults' expectations about the generalizability of familiar adjectives of three different types: emotional state terms, physiological state terms, and stable trait terms. On each trial, we labeled a target animal with one of the three different types of adjectives and asked whether these terms could apply to a subordinate-level match, a basic-level match, a superordinate-level match, or an inanimate object. Results indicated that 4-year-olds and adults extended the trait terms, but not the emotional or physiological terms, to members of the same basic-level category. In Experiment 2, we presented 4-year-olds and adults with novel adjectives in one of two verb frames: stable ("This X is very daxy") or transient ("This X feels very daxy"). Participants were more likely to extend the novel adjective to subordinate matches if they were in the Stable frame group than if they were in the Transient frame group. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for young children's expectations about familiar and novel adjectives.     

A Cross-Linguistic Examination of the Noun-Category Bias: Its Existence and Specificity in French- and Spanish-Speaking Preschool-Aged Children

Previous research has revealed that English-speaking preschoolers expect that a novel count noun (but not a novel adjective), applied to an individual object, may be extended to other members of the same basic or superordinate level category. However, because the existing literature is based almost exclusively on English-speakers, it is unclear whether this specific expectation is evident in children acquiring languages other than English. The experiments reported here constitute the first cross-linguistic, developmental test of the noun-category linkage. We examined monolingual French- and Spanish-speaking preschool-aged children's superordinate level categorization in a match-to-sample task. Target objects were introduced with (a) novel words presented as count nouns (e.g., “This is afopin”), (b) novel words presented as adjectives (e.g., “This is afopishone”), or (c) no novel words. Like English-speakers, French- and Spanish-speakers extended count nouns consistently to other category members. This is consistent with our prediction that the mapping between count nouns and object categories may be a universal phenomenon. However, children's extension of novel adjectives varied across languages. Like English-speakers, French-speakers did not extend novel adjectives to other members of the same category. In contrast, Spanish-speakers did extend novel adjectives, like count nouns, in this fashion. This is consistent with our prediction that the mappings between adjectives and their associated applications vary across languages. The results provide much-needed cross-linguistic support for the noun-category linkage and illustrate the importance of the interplay between constraints within the child and input from the language environment.     

The development of induction based on noun and feature labels

In two experiments, we examined the development of sensitivity to the inductive potential of shared novel noun and feature labels. Children (4-year-olds, 5-year-olds, and 8-year-olds) and adults were presented with a complete base stimulus and an incomplete target. The task was to infer whether the missing target feature matched the corresponding base feature. The base and target were given matching or mismatching novel labels, which were either count nouns or adjectives describing object features. Use of matching labels for induction increased with age. Nevertheless, all age groups were more likely to make inferences based on novel noun labels rather than feature labels. These results support the view that even preschool children grasp the conceptual significance of count nouns for induction.     

Grammatical priming of inflected nouns by the gender of possessive adjectives

Two experiments examined the effect on lexical decision times for inflected Serbo-Croatian nouns when the nouns were preceded by possessive adjectives (my, your, our). For any given pairing the possessive adjective and the noun agreed always in number (singular) and case (nominative) but only agreed half of the time in gender (masculine or feminine). Lexical decisions were faster when the noun targets were of the same gender as their primes. This gender congruency/incongruency effect was shown to hold whether the inflections of the adjective and noun were the same (as is the case for typical Serbo-Croatian nouns) or different (as is the case for atypical Serbo-Croatian nouns). The results are discussed in terms of a postlexical influence of grammatical processing on the recognition of individual words.     

Preschoolers' use of form class cues in word learning

Three experiments were conducted, involving a total of 180 2 1/2-5-year-old children. The experiments assessed the claim that preschoolers override form class cues in the interest of honoring word-meaning assumptions when they acquire new labels. Children were asked to choose an unlabeled- or a labeled-category object as the referent of a novel word modeled syntactically as a count noun or an adjective (Experiment 1) or as a count noun, adjective, or proper name (Experiments 2 and 3). Participants' interpretations of the word were also assessed (Experiment 3). Unlike many previous results, results of the present study demonstrate that children respect the form class cues when these cues and word-meaning assumptions suggest conflicting interpretations. It is proposed that past findings underestimate the robustness of form class cues as sources of information for preschoolers about the meanings of new words.     

The origins and evolution of links between word learning and conceptual organization: new evidence from 11‐month‐olds

How do infants map words to their meaning? How do they discover that different types of words (e.g. noun, adjective) refer to different aspects of the same objects (e.g. category, property)? We have proposed that (1) infants begin with a broad expectation that novel open‐class words (both nouns and adjectives) highlight commonalities (both category‐ and property‐based) among objects, and that (2) this initial expectation is subsequently fine‐tuned through linguistic experience. We examine the first part of this proposal, asking whether 11‐month‐old infants can construe the very same set of objects (e.g. four purple animals) either as members of an object category (e.g. animals) or as embodying a salient object property (e.g. four purple things), and whether naming (with count nouns vs. adjectives) differentially influences their construals. Results support the proposal. Infants treated novel nouns and adjectives identically, mapping both types of words to both category‐ and property‐based commonalities among objects.     

Preschoolers' and adults' reliance on object shape and object function for lexical extension.

We investigated the developmental progression of reliance on object function versus object shape to extend novel words. In 3 experiments, 3-year-olds, 5-year-olds, and adults were presented with sets of objects consisting of a target, a same-shape/different-function match, a different-shape/same-function match, and a distracter. In Experiments 1 and 2, function was emphasized during the word learning phase and participants were given direct experience with the functions of target and test objects. In Experiment 3, function was emphasized both during the learning phase and when requesting a referent of the novel labels. Across all 3 experiments, 3- and 5-year-olds focused on shape while adults focused on function when extending the novel words. These results suggest a developmental change in the consideration of shape and function in lexical extension.     

The relative strengths of indirect and direct word learning

Indirect word learning lacks many of the overt social-pragmatic cues to reference available in direct word learning, yet the two result in equally robust mappings when comprehension is assessed immediately after learning. The 3 studies reported here investigated how 3-year-olds (N=96) respond to more challenging tests of the relative strengths of indirect and direct word learning. In Study 1, children's comprehension of indirectly and directly learned proper and common names was tested after a 2-day delay. Both types of learning resulted in proper name mappings that picked out an individual and in common name mappings that could be extended to another category member. In Studies 2 and 3, children's comprehension was tested after they had been provided with additional, and sometimes inconsistent, information about the scope of previously learned words. There was a hint of a difference between indirect and direct word learning. but results overall suggested that the two were equivalent.     

Processing of Grammatical Gender in a Three-Gender System: Experimental Evidence from Russian

Four experiments investigated the effect of grammatical gender on lexical access in Russian. Adjective–noun pairs were presented auditorily, using a cued-shadowing technique in which subjects must repeat the second word (the target noun), following adjectives that are either concordant or discordant with the noun's gender. Experiment 1 demonstrates gender priming with unambiguous adjectives and phonologically transparent masculine or feminine nouns. Experiment 2 examines priming for transparent nouns against a neutral baseline (possible only for feminines and neuters), revealing that priming is due primarily to inhibition from discordant gender. Experiment 3 demonstrates gender priming with phonologically opaque masculine and feminine nouns. Experiment 4 returns to transparent masculine and feminine nouns with a different kind of baseline, using three versions of a single word root (prost—simple, in the feminine adjectival form prostaja, masculine adjectival form prostoj, and the adverbial form prosto ), and shows that gender can also facilitate lexical access, at least for feminine nouns. We conclude that Russian listeners can exploit gender agreement cues on-line, helping them to predict the identity of an upcoming word.     

Mapping Words to the World in Infancy: Infants' Expectations for Count Nouns and Adjectives

Three experimentsdocumentthat 14-month-old infants'construal of objects (e.g., purple animals) is influenced by naming, that they can distinguish between the grammatical form noun and adjective, and that they treat this distinction as relevant to meaning. In each experiment, infants extended novel nouns (e.g., "This one is a blicket") specifically to object categories (e.g., animal), and not to object properties (e.g., purple things). This robust noun-category link is related to grammatical form and not to surface differences in the presentation of novelwords (Experiment 3). Infants'extensions of novel adjectives (e.g., "This one is blickish") were more fragile: They extended adjectives specifically to object properties when the property was color (Experiment 1), but revealed a less precise mapping when the property was texture (Experiment 2). These results reveal that by 14 months, infants distinguish between grammatical forms and utilize these distinctions in determining the meaning of novel words.     

婴幼儿词语习得中的社会性认知加工过程

有关婴幼儿词语习得的研究主要有三种理论假设:联想学习理论、制约限制理论和社会语用理论.本文将从以下四个方面着重介绍社会语用理论的相关研究:婴幼儿词语习得过程涉及哪些社会性认知加工过程,社会语用理论如何应对来自前两种理论的质疑和挑战,社会性认知加工过程的相对权重如何以及自闲症儿童词语习得存在怎样的社会性认知加工障碍.相关研究结果表明社会性认知加工过程在婴幼儿词语习得中具有基础性作用.最后对今后在该领域的研究中需要进一步深入探讨的问题提出了一些思考.     

Linguistic and conceptual influences on adjective acquisition in 24- and 36-month-olds

Two hundred forty English-speaking toddlers (24- and 36-month-olds) heard novel adjectives applied to familiar objects (Experiment 1) and novel objects (Experiment 2). Children were successful in mapping adjectives to target properties only when information provided by the noun, in conjunction with participants' knowledge of the objects, provided coherent category information: when basic-level nouns or superordinate-level nouns were used with familiar objects, when novel basic-level nouns were used with novel objects, and--for 36-month-olds--when the nouns were underspecified with respect to category (thing or one) but participants could nonetheless infer a category from pragmatic and conceptual knowledge. These results provide evidence concerning how nouns influence adjective learning, and they support the notion that toddlers consider pragmatic factors when learning new words.     

Two-year-olds use pragmatic cues to differentiate reference to objects and actions

Previous studies have found that children can use social-pragmatic cues to determine “which one” of several objects or “which one’ of several actions an adult intends to indicate with a novel word. The current studies attempted to determine whether children can also use such cues to determine “what kind” of referent, object, or action, an adult intends to indicate. In the first study, 27-month-old children heard an adult use a nonce word in conjunction with a nameless object while it was engaged in a nameless action. The discourse situation leading into this naming event was manipulated so that in one condition the target action was the one new element in the discourse context at the time of the naming event, and in another condition the target object was the one new element. Results showed that children learned the new word for whichever element was new to the discourse context. The second study followed this same general method, but in this case children in one condition watched as an adult engaged in preparatory behaviors that indicated her desire that the child perform the action before she produced the novel word, whereas children in another condition saw no such preparation. Results showed that children who saw the action preparation learned the new word for the action, whereas children who saw no preparation learned the new word for the object. These two studies demonstrate the important role of social-pragmatic information in early word learning, and suggest that if there is a Whole Object assumption in early lexical acquisition, it is an assumption that may be very easily overridden.     

Seeing pink elephants: fourteen-month-olds' interpretations of novel nouns and adjectives.

Words from different grammatical categories (e.g., nouns and adjectives) highlight different aspects of the same objects (e.g., object categories and object properties). Two experiments examine the acquisition of this phenomenon in 14-month-olds, asking whether infants can construe the very same set of objects (e.g., four purple animals) either as members of an object category (e.g., animals) or as embodying a salient object property (e.g., four purple things) and whether naming (with either count nouns or adjectives) influences infants' construals. Results suggest (1) that infants have begun to distinguish count nouns from adjectives, (2) that infants share with mature language-users an expectation that different grammatical forms highlight different aspects, and (3) that infants recruit these expectations when extending novel words. Further, these results suggest that an expectation linking count nouns to object categories emerges early in acquisition and supports the emergence of other word-to-world mappings.     

How children name objects with shoes

Many studies report a shape bias in children's learning of object names. However, one previous study suggests that the shape bias is not the only perceptually based bias displayed by children learning count nouns. Specifically, children attended to texture as well as shape when extending a novel name to novel objects with eyes. Two experiments attempt to extend this finding, asking whether children will also attend to texture in the presence of another cue to animacy—shoes. In Experiment 1, 80 2- and 3-year-olds participated in either a Name generalization or Similarity judgment task. The novel objects were identical except that for half of the children the objects had shoes. In the Similarity condition, children made their judgments by overall similarity. In the Name condition, 2-year-olds extended the novel name by shape across objects both with and without shoes. In contrast, 3-year-olds generalized the novel name by shape when the objects had no shoes but by texture when the objects had shoes. Experiment 2 challenged this finding, using a forced choice procedure and objects that differed from the named exemplar more markedly in shape. Twenty 3-year-olds participated in a Name generalization task, half for objects with shoes, half for objects without shoes. Again, children attended reliably more to texture when the objects had shoes than when they had no shoes. The results are discussed in terms of the development of different perceptually based biases and the relation of such biases to a taxonomic bias in early word learning.