scholarly journals Children's use of information in word learning

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 393-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Kit-Fong Au
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Linguistic Information ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Knowledge And Beliefs ◽  
Novel Material ◽  
Children's Beliefs

ABSTRACTWhenever children hear a novel word, the context supplies information about its meaning. One way children may cope with so much information is to use whatever seems to make sense, given their prior knowledge and beliefs, while ignoring or quickly forgetting the rest. This work examined if and how children's beliefs about word meanings may affect their use of contrastive linguistic information in the input in word learning. In Study 1, some 3- and 4-year-olds were introduced to a novel material or shape name and heard it contrasted with familiar words. Others merely heard the novel word used for referring to an object. These children were then tested to determine what they had learned about their new word meaning. In Study 2, another group of 3-and 4-year-olds were asked to name the materials and shapes used for introducing these novel terms. Children made use of linguistic contrast only in some situations. They benefited more when the novel term did not overlap much in denotation with any terms commonly known by 3-and 4-year-olds. These results suggest that children can use information in the input very efficiently in learning a term for an as-yet-unnamed category, but not in learning a term similar in denotation to a word they already know. Thus, the results are consistent with the claim that children believe every word has a unique denotation.

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.

The Type, but Not the Amount, of Information Available Influences Toddlers' Fast Mapping and Retention of New Words

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn W. Brady ◽  
Judith C. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fast Mapping ◽  
New Words ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Significant Rate ◽  
Mapping Task ◽  
Novel Words

Purpose The authors of this study examined whether the type and number of word-learning cues affect how children infer and retain word-meaning mappings and whether the use of these cues changes with age. Method Forty-eight 18- to 36-month-old children with typical language participated in a fast-mapping task in which 6 novel words were presented with 3 types of cues to the words' referents, either singly or in pairs. One day later, children were tested for retention of the novel words. Results By 24 months of age, children correctly inferred the referents of the novel words at a significant level. Children retained the meanings of words at a significant rate by 30 months of age. Children retained the first 3 of the 6 word-meaning mappings by 24 months of age. For both fast mapping and retention, the efficacy of different cue types changed with development, but children were equally successful whether the novel words were presented with 1 or 2 cues. Conclusion The type of information available to children at fast mapping affects their ability to both form and retain word-meaning associations. Providing children with more information in the form of paired cues had no effect on either fast mapping or retention.

scholarly journals Prosody and Function Words Cue the Acquisition of Word Meanings in 18-Month-Old Infants

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex de Carvalho ◽  
Angela Xiaoxue He ◽  
Jeffrey Lidz ◽  
Anne Christophe
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Lexical Acquisition ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
And Function ◽  
Speech Melody

Language acquisition presents a formidable task for infants, for whom word learning is a crucial yet challenging step. Syntax (the rules for combining words into sentences) has been robustly shown to be a cue to word meaning. But how can infants access syntactic information when they are still acquiring the meanings of words? We investigated the contribution of two cues that may help infants break into the syntax and give a boost to their lexical acquisition: phrasal prosody (speech melody) and function words, both of which are accessible early in life and correlate with syntactic structure in the world’s languages. We show that 18-month-old infants use prosody and function words to recover sentences’ syntactic structure, which in turn constrains the possible meanings of novel words: Participants ( N = 48 in each of two experiments) interpreted a novel word as referring to either an object or an action, given its position within the prosodic-syntactic structure of sentences.

A connection in lexical development

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 157-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marja van Helden-Lankhaar
Keyword(s):  
Word Association ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Lexical Development ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Lexical Relations ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship is examined between two different domains of lexical development: innovative compounding and access to abstract lexical relations. The creation of novel compounds as appropriate labels for novel concepts requires the accessibility of relatively abstract relations between word meanings in the mental lexicon. In a picture naming task in which novel concepts have to be labeled (e.g., a vehicle that can both sail and drive) children’s production of appropriate novel compounds (e.g., car-boat) increases with age. This compound production is, independently of age, related to children’s ability to access coordinate lexical relations (such as between cat and dog) in a contrastive word association task (‘a cat is not a...?’). It is proposed that this connection between innovative compounding and access to coordinate relations is cognitive in nature and involves a common ability for lexical comparisons. Innovative compounding reflects comparison ‘on the spot’ between the novel concept and available related word meaning knowledge, and contrastive coordinate production reflects the results of developmentally earlier comparison processes evoked by adult contrastive input.

Discourse coherence as a cue to reference in word learning: Evidence for discourse bootstrapping

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jess Sullivan ◽  
Juliana Boucher ◽  
Reina Kiefer ◽  
Katherine Williams ◽  
David Barner
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Temporal Relations ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
Coherence Relations ◽  
Meaningful Relationships ◽  
Novel Words

Word learning depends critically on the use of linguistic context to constrain the likely meanings of words. However, the mechanisms by which children infer word meaning from linguistic context are still poorly understood. In the present study, we asked whether adults (n = 58) and 2- to 6-year-old children (n = 180) use discourse coherence relations (i.e., the meaningful relationships between elements within a discourse) to constrain their interpretation of novel words. Specifically, we showed participants videos of novel animals exchanging objects. These videos were accompanied by a linguistic description of the events in which we manipulated a single word within a sentence (and vs. because) in order to alter the causal and temporal relations between the events in the discourse (e.g., “One animal handed the baby to the other animal [and/because] the baby started crying in the talfa’s arms”). We then asked participants which animal (the giver or the receiver) was the referent of the novel word. Across two experiments, we found evidence that young children used the causal and temporal relations in each discourse to constrain their interpretations of novel words.

scholarly journals From social contingency to verbal reference: a constructivist hypothesis.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Luchkina ◽  
Fei Xu
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Developmental Theory ◽  
Mediated Learning ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Social Contingency ◽  
Ostensive Communication

In the first year of life, infants’ word learning is slow, laborious, and requires long, repeated exposure to word-referent co-occurrences. In contrast, by 14-18 months, infants learn words from just a few labeling events, use joint attention and eye-gaze to decipher word meaning, and begin to use speech to communicate about absent things. We propose that this remarkable advancement in word learning results from attaining verbal reference–a property of words (or other signals) that are linked to mental representations and used intentionally to communicate about real-world referents. We argue that verbal reference is supported by co-developing conceptual, social, representational, and statistical learning capacities. We also propose that infants’ recognition of this tri-directional link between words, referents, and mental representations is fueled by their experience participating in and observing socially contingent interactions. Verbal reference signals a qualitative shift in infants’ word learning. This shift enables infants to bootstrap word meanings from syntax and semantics, learn novel words and facts from non-ostensive communication, and even make inferences about speakers’ epistemic competence based on their language production. In this paper, we review empirical findings across multiple facets of infant cognition, propose a novel developmental theory of verbal reference, and reconcile a long-standing debate on the mechanisms of early word learning. Finally, we propose new directions of empirical research that may provide stronger and more direct evidence for our theory and contribute to our understanding of the development of verbal reference and language-mediated learning in infancy and beyond.

scholarly journals Children’s use of polysemy to structure new word meanings

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahesh Srinivasan ◽  
Catherine Berner ◽  
Hugh Rabagliati
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Object A ◽  
Shape Bias ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
Polysemous Word ◽  
Polysemous Words

It is well-known that children rapidly learn words, following a range of heuristics. What is less well appreciated is that – because most words are polysemous and have multiple meanings (e.g., ‘glass’ can label a material and drinking vessel) – children will often be learning a new meaning for a known word, rather than an entirely new word. Across four experiments we show that children flexibly adapt a well-known heuristic – the shape bias – when learning polysemous words. Consistent with previous studies, we find that children and adults preferentially extend a new object label to other objects of the same shape. But we also find that when a new word for an object (‘a gup’) has previously been used to label the material composing that object (‘some gup’), children and adults override the shape bias, and are more likely to extend the object label by material (Experiments 1 and 3). Further, we find that, just as an older meaning of a polysemous word constrains interpretations of a new word meaning, encountering a new word meaning leads learners to update their interpretations of an older meaning (Experiment 2). Finally, we find that these effects only arise when learners can perceive that a word’s meanings are related, not when they are arbitrarily paired (Experiment 4). Together, these findings show that children can exploit cues from polysemy to infer how new word meanings should be extended, suggesting that polysemy may facilitate word learning and invite children to construe categories in new ways

Theoretical Ecology

2007 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Dynamics ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Theoretical Ecology ◽  
Global Environmental Problems ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Interacting Populations ◽  
Novel Material ◽  
Ecological Science

Robert May's seminal book has played a central role in the development of ecological science. Originally published in 1976, this influential text has overseen the transition of ecology from an observational and descriptive subject to one with a solid conceptual core. Indeed, it is a testament to its influence that a great deal of the novel material presented in the earlier editions has now been incorporated into standard undergraduate textbooks. It is now a quarter of a century since the publication of the second edition, and a thorough revision is timely. Theoretical Ecology provides a succinct, up-to-date overview of the field set in the context of applications, thereby bridging the traditional division of theory and practice. It describes the recent advances in our understanding of how interacting populations of plants and animals change over time and space, in response to natural or human-created disturbance. In an integrated way, initial chapters give an account of the basic principles governing the structure, function, and temporal and spatial dynamics of populations and communities of plants and animals. Later chapters outline applications of these ideas to practical issues including fisheries, infectious diseases, tomorrow's food supplies, climate change, and conservation biology. Throughout the book, emphasis is placed on questions which as yet remain unanswered. The editors have invited the top scientists in the field to collaborate with the next generation of theoretical ecologists. The result is an accessible, advanced textbook suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate level students as well as researchers in the fields of ecology, mathematical biology, environmental and resources management. It will also be of interest to the general reader seeking a better understanding of a range of global environmental problems.

Baseball fans don’t like lumpy batters: Influence of domain knowledge on the access of subordinate meanings

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Wiley ◽  
Tim George ◽  
Keith Rayner
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Domain Knowledge ◽  
Negative Evidence ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Positive Evidence ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Baseball Fans ◽  
Evidence Condition ◽  
Access Model

Two experiments investigated the effects of domain knowledge on the resolution of ambiguous words with dominant meanings related to baseball. When placed in a sentence context that strongly biased toward the non-baseball meaning (positive evidence), or excluded the baseball meaning (negative evidence), baseball experts had more difficulty than non-experts resolving the ambiguity. Sentence contexts containing positive evidence supported earlier resolution than did the negative evidence condition for both experts and non-experts. These experiments extend prior findings, and can be seen as support for the reordered access model of lexical access, where both prior knowledge and discourse context influence the availability of word meanings.

Morphological Knowledge as an Aid to Word Learning: A Cross-Situational Word Learning Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Finley
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Initial Training ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Morphological Knowledge ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Morphological Cues

The present study explores morphological bootstrapping in cross-situational word learning. Adult, English-speaking participants were exposed to novel words from an artificial language from three different semantic categories: fruit, animals, and vehicles. In the Experimental conditions, the final CV syllable was consistent across categories (e.g., /-ke/ for fruits), while in the Control condition, the endings were the same, but were assigned to words randomly. After initial training on the morphology under various degrees of referential uncertainty, participants were given a cross-situational word learning task with high referential uncertainty. With poor statistical cues to learn the words across trials, participants were forced to rely on the morphological cues to word meaning. In Experiments 1-3, participants in the Experimental conditions repeatedly outperformed participants in the Control conditions. In Experiment 4, when referential uncertainty was high in both parts of the experiment, there was no evidence of learning or making use of the morphological cues. These results suggest that learners apply morphological cues to word meaning only once they are reliably available.

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