Effects of past language experience and present language context on the shape bias in Spanish–English bilingual children

English‐monolingual children develop a shape bias early in language acquisition, such that they more often generalize a novel label based on shape than other features. Spanish‐monolingual children, however, do not show this bias to the same extent (Hahn & Cantrell, 2012). Studying children who are simultaneously learning both Spanish and English presents a unique opportunity to further investigate how this word‐learning bias develops. Thus, we asked how Spanish–English bilingual children (M_age = 21.31 months) perform in a novel‐noun generalization (NNG) task, specifically examining how past language experience (i.e. language exposure and vocabulary size) and present language context (i.e. whether the NNG task was conducted in Spanish or English) influence the strength of the shape bias. Participants completed the NNG task either entirely in English (N = 16) or entirely in Spanish (N = 16), as well as language understanding tasks in both English and Spanish to ensure that they understood what the experimenter was asking them to do. Parents completed a language exposure survey and vocabulary checklists in Spanish and English. There was a significant interaction between condition and choice type: Bilingual children in the English condition showed a shape bias in the NNG task, but bilingual children in the Spanish condition showed no reliable biases. No measures of past language experience were related to NNG task performance. These results suggest that when learning new words, bilingual children are attuned to the regularities of the present language context, and prior language experiences may play a more secondary role.     

Does humic acid alter visually and chemically guided foraging in stickleback fish?

Animal Cognition - Sensory systems function under the influence of multiple, interacting environmental properties. When environments change, so may perception through one or more sensory systems,...     

Constructions and Reconstructions: Latino Parents' Values for Children

There is a fair amount of support for the premise that parents construct their child-related values from the ethnic cultural models that are available to them. There are also indications that personal experiences play a role in the construction of values. However, this latter influence has not been well-researched. We reconstructed the child-related values of a sample of Mexican American and Puerto Rican parents of young children with disability to describe parent-held values and to examine the extent to which having a child with a disability impacted on these values. Analysis of parental ratings and of their narratives indicated substantial consistency across gender, civil status, and country of origin. Disability appeared to have a small and diffused impact on the values. Ratings differed significantly on the basis of the language of interview, and the definitions that parents offered also showed an effect of interaction with the Anglo American culture. However, an in-depth examination of these differences indicated that they were mostly restricted to labeling. The basic values of parents remained fairly consistent. This finding has substantial implications for research and practice. Equivalence of meaning should not be assumed across populations.     

Breadwinner and caregiver: A cross‐sectional analysis of children's and emerging adults’ visions of their future family roles

Participants were 150 school‐age boys and girls, 58 high school students, and 145 university students drawn from communities in the Southeastern United States. In this cross‐sectional study, family role attitudes and expectations were examined across development. Parental work traditionality (occupational prestige and traditionality, and employed hours) predicted daughters’ social role attitudes and plans for future family roles, such that daughters’ envisioned families resembled that of their parents. Sons’ and daughters’ own attitudes about adult family roles predicted their plans to work or stay home with their future children; however, mothers’ work traditionality predicted daughters’ future plans over and above daughters’ own attitudes. The only exception to this was in the case of university daughters, where university women's attitudes about social roles fully mediated this relationship. It may be that, as young women approach adulthood and the formation of families, they adjust their vision of their future self to match more closely their own attitudes about the caregiving role.     

Normative Social Role Concepts in Early Childhood

The current studies (N = 255, children ages 4–5 and adults) explore patterns of age‐related continuity and change in conceptual representations of social role categories (e.g., “scientist”). In Study 1, young children's judgments of category membership were shaped by both category labels and category‐normative traits, and the two were dissociable, indicating that even young children's conceptual representations for some social categories have a “dual character.” In Study 2, when labels and traits were contrasted, adults and children based their category‐based induction decisions on category‐normative traits rather than labels. Study 3 confirmed that children reason based on category‐normative traits because they view them as an obligatory part of category membership. In contrast, adults in this study viewed the category‐normative traits as informative on their own (not only as a cue to obligations). Implications for continuity and change in representations of social role categories will be discussed.