Concept formation and language acquisition

Abstract.— Aspects of language acquisition (simulated) were studied in a concept formation situation with adult subjects. It was found that word meanings were acquired faster with complex than with simple stimulation, as detined by low and high variance distributions of attribute values. It was also demonstrated that stimulus and response choice strategies affect the acquisition of word meanings. Implicit hypotheses about the number of relevant stimulus dimensions were not found to influence concept formation. In a more general perspective, the outcome of the study is consistent with the assumption that the meaning of words is acquired by a concept formation process.