scholarly journals The role of developmental change and linguistic experience in the mutual exclusivity effect

Cognition ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 198 ◽  
pp. 104191
Author(s):  
Molly Lewis ◽  
Veronica Cristiano ◽  
Brenden M. Lake ◽  
Tammy Kwan ◽  
Michael C. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Change ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity ◽  
Linguistic Experience

scholarly journals The role of developmental change and linguistic experience in the mutual exclusivity effect

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly Lewis ◽  
Veronica Cristiano ◽  
Brenden M. Lake ◽  
Tammy Kwan ◽  
Michael C. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Developmental Change ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Description ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
The Relationship

Given a novel word and a familiar and a novel referent, children have a bias to assume the novel word refers to the novel referent. This bias -- often referred to as "Mutual Exclusivity'' (ME) -- is thought to be a potentially powerful route through which children might learn new word meanings, and, consequently, has been the focus of a large amount of empirical study and theorizing. Here, we focus on two aspects of the bias that have received relatively little attention in the literature: Development and experience. A successful theory of ME will need to provide an account for why the strength of the effect changes with the age of the child. We provide a quantitative description of the change in the strength of the bias across development, and investigate the role that linguistic experience plays in this developmental change. We first summarize the current body of empirical findings via a meta-analysis, and then present two experiments that examine the relationship between a child's amount of linguistic experience and the strength of the ME bias. We conclude that the strength of the bias varies dramatically across development and that linguistic experience is likely one causal factor contributing to this change. In the General Discussion, we describe how existing theories of ME can account for our findings, and highlight the value of computational modeling for future theorizing.

scholarly journals The role of gaze direction and mutual exclusivity in guiding 24-month-olds' word mappings

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan A. Graham ◽  
Elizabeth S. Nilsen ◽  
Sarah Collins ◽  
Kara Olineck
Keyword(s):  
Gaze Direction ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity

The role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the pathophysiology of adolescent suicidal behavior

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Sher
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Suicidal Behavior ◽  
Neurotrophic Factor ◽  
Adolescent Suicide ◽  
Developmental Change ◽  
Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor ◽  
Childhood And Adolescence ◽  
Compulsive Disorder

Abstract Adolescent suicide research has mostly focused on demographic risk factors. Such studies focus on who is at risk, but do not explain why certain adolescents are at risk for suicide. Studies of the neurobiology of adolescent suicide could clarify why some youths are more suicidal than others and help to find biological markers of suicidal behavior in teenagers. Over the past decade the role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the pathophysiology of suicidal behavior has attracted significant attention of scientists. BDNF is involved in the pathophysiology of many psychiatric disorders associated with suicidal behavior including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. BDNF dysregulation could be associated with increased suicidality independently of psychiatric diagnoses. BDNF plays an important role in the regulation and growth of neurons during childhood and adolescence. Prominent among the brain regions undergoing developmental change during adolescence are stressor-sensitive areas. The serotonin dysfunction found in adolescent and adult suicidal behavior could be related to the low level of BDNF, which impedes the normal development of serotonin neurons during brain development. BDNF dysfunction could play a more significant role in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders and suicidal behavior in adolescents than in adults. Treatment-induced enhancement in the BDNF function could reduce suicidal behavior secondary to the improvement in psychiatric pathology or independently of improvement in psychiatric disorders. It is interesting to hypothesize that BDNF could be a biological marker of suicidal behavior in adolescents or in certain adolescent populations.

Using Speakers' Referential Intentions to Model Early Cross-Situational Word Learning

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 578-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Frank ◽  
Noah D. Goodman ◽  
Joshua B. Tenenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Computational Model ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity ◽  
Object Individuation ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Inference Problems ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Situational Learning

Word learning is a “chicken and egg” problem. If a child could understand speakers' utterances, it would be easy to learn the meanings of individual words, and once a child knows what many words mean, it is easy to infer speakers' intended meanings. To the beginning learner, however, both individual word meanings and speakers' intentions are unknown. We describe a computational model of word learning that solves these two inference problems in parallel, rather than relying exclusively on either the inferred meanings of utterances or cross-situational word-meaning associations. We tested our model using annotated corpus data and found that it inferred pairings between words and object concepts with higher precision than comparison models. Moreover, as the result of making probabilistic inferences about speakers' intentions, our model explains a variety of behavioral phenomena described in the word-learning literature. These phenomena include mutual exclusivity, one-trial learning, cross-situational learning, the role of words in object individuation, and the use of inferred intentions to disambiguate reference.

scholarly journals Selective attention to a talker's mouth in infancy: role of audiovisual temporal synchrony and linguistic experience

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. e12381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Hillairet de Boisferon ◽  
Amy H. Tift ◽  
Nicholas J. Minar ◽  
David J. Lewkowicz
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Temporal Synchrony

scholarly journals Semantic Imagination as Condition to our Linguistic Experience

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-378
Author(s):  
Nazareno Eduardo De Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Essential Feature ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Semantic Function ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Counterfactual Thought ◽  
Semiotic Perspective

The main purpose of this article is, from a semiotic perspective, arguing for the recognizing of a semantic role of the imagination as a necessary condition to our linguistic experience, regarded as an essential feature of the relations of our thought with the world through signification processes (and the sign systems they perform); processes centered in but not reducible to discourse. The text is divided into three parts. The first part presents the traditional position in philosophy and cognitive sciences that had barred until recent times the possibility to investigate the semantic function performed by imagination, mainly due to the anti-psychologist arguments on which it is based. After that, I situate my perspective inside of the recent research panorama in philosophy and cognitive science. The second part presents the semiotic framework on the relation between thought, language, and world, conceived through the concepts of signification processes and sense-conditions. Within this framework, I introduce the concept of linguistic experience, characterizing semantic imagination as one of its sense-conditions. In the third part, several pieces of evidence for corroborating the semantic function of imagination are discussed. These pieces come from the fields of phenomena denoted as diagrammatic thought and counterfactual thought. Diagrammatic thought, briefly discussed, points out the semantic work of imagination in the semi-discursive sign systems constructed in mathematics, logic, and natural science. After defending a widening of the concept of counterfactual thought, and its intrinsic relation with semantic imagination, the role of semantic imagination is briefly discussed in some types of counterfactual thought found in our conceptions of modal concepts, in thought experiments, in apagogical arguments, and in the creative discursive devices.

scholarly journals Autophagy in unicellular eukaryotes

2010 ◽  
Vol 365 (1541) ◽  
pp. 819-830 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan A. K. W. Kiel
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Yeast Species ◽  
Developmental Change ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Extracellular Medium ◽  
New Host ◽  
Growth And Survival ◽  
Atp Production ◽  
Unicellular Eukaryotes

Cells need a constant supply of precursors to enable the production of macromolecules to sustain growth and survival. Unlike metazoans, unicellular eukaryotes depend exclusively on the extracellular medium for this supply. When environmental nutrients become depleted, existing cytoplasmic components will be catabolized by (macro)autophagy in order to re-use building blocks and to support ATP production. In many cases, autophagy takes care of cellular housekeeping to sustain cellular viability. Autophagy encompasses a multitude of related and often highly specific processes that are implicated in both biogenetic and catabolic processes. Recent data indicate that in some unicellular eukaryotes that undergo profound differentiation during their life cycle (e.g. kinetoplastid parasites and amoebes), autophagy is essential for the developmental change that allows the cell to adapt to a new host or form spores. This review summarizes the knowledge on the molecular mechanisms of autophagy as well as the cytoplasm-to-vacuole-targeting pathway, pexophagy, mitophagy, ER-phagy, ribophagy and piecemeal microautophagy of the nucleus, all highly selective forms of autophagy that have first been uncovered in yeast species. Additionally, a detailed analysis will be presented on the state of knowledge on autophagy in non-yeast unicellular eukaryotes with emphasis on the role of this process in differentiation.

Role of adult input in young children's category evolution: II an experimental study

1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 493-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rae L. Banigan ◽  
Carolyn B. Mervis
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Relative Effectiveness ◽  
Verbal Description ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity ◽  
Object A ◽  
Basic Level

ABSTRACTYoung children's initial categories often are not identical to the adult category labelled by the same word. Eventually, children's categories must evolve to correspond to the adult standard. The purpose of this study was to consider the relative effectiveness of four input strategies in inducing the child to learn the adult-appropriate label and begin to form a new category. Fifty-six children aged 2;0 were taught new labels for objects that they included in categories labelled by different names. Comprehension and production post-tests were then administered. As expected, the most effective strategy involved labelling an object and providing both a physical demonstration and a verbal description of important attributes that made the object a member of the adult-appropriate category. The label plus physical demonstration strategy was next most effective. Neither the label plus verbal description strategy nor the label only strategy was effective for children of this age. Results also indicated that these 24 month olds did not yet honour the convention of mutual exclusivity of basic level categories.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document