scholarly journals Rigid thinking about deformables: do children sometimes overgeneralize the shape bias?

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
LARISSA K. SAMUELSON ◽  
JESSICA S. HORST ◽  
ANNE R. SCHUTTE ◽  
BRANDI N. DOBBERTIN
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Rigid Objects ◽  
Shape Bias ◽  
Deformable Materials ◽  
Syntactic Context ◽  
Learning English

ABSTRACTYoung children learning English are biased to attend to the shape of solid rigid objects when learning novel names. This study seeks further understanding of the processes that support this behavior by examining a previous finding that three-year-old children are also biased to generalize novel names for objects made from deformable materials by shape, even after the materials are made salient. In two experiments, we examined the noun generalizations of 72 two-, three- and four-year-old children with rigid and deformable stimuli. Data reveal that three-year-old, but not two- or four-year-old, children generalize names for deformable things by shape, and that this behavior is not due to the syntactic context of the task. We suggest this behavior is an overgeneralization of three-year-old children's knowledge of how rigid things are named and discuss the implications of this finding for a developmental account of the origins of the shape bias.

Young children’s extension of novel labels to novel animate items in three testing conditions

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Arias-Trejo
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Repeated Exposure ◽  
Shape Similarity ◽  
Perceptual Cues ◽  
Shape Information ◽  
Testing Conditions ◽  
Research Reporting ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Shape Bias ◽  
Processing Demands

The present research explores young children’s extension of novel labels to novel animate items. Three experiments were performed by means of the intermodal preferential looking (IPL) paradigm. In Experiment 1, after repeated exposure to novel word—object associations, 24- and 36-month-olds extend novel labels on the basis of shape similarity, in a task that pits a match in shape against a match in color. Experiment 2 finds 24-month-olds’ rapid reliance on shape, when introducing simplified trials that required identifying a match in shape or color separately. Experiment 3 reassesses young children’s ability to weigh up two perceptual cues, but in a condition in which the standard item remains visible, demonstrating 18- and 24-month-olds’ use of shape to extend novel labels. In contrast to previous research reporting an early shape bias mainly for inanimate items, this paper reveals that young children also consider shape to be a relevant cue to generalize novel labels to novel animate items. However, memory and processing demands appear to be crucial in the early ability to use shape information to extend novel labels to novel animate stimuli.

scholarly journals Knowing more than one can say: The early regular plural

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 1145-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNIFER A. ZAPF ◽  
LINDA B. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Partial Knowledge ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
Singular Form ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Broad Generalization ◽  
Learning English ◽  
Children's Learning

ABSTRACTThis paper reports on partial knowledge in two-year-old children's learning of the regular English plural. In Experiments 1 and 2, children were presented with one kind and its label and then were either presented with two of that same kind (A→AA) or the initial picture next to a very different thing (A→AB). The children in A→AA rarely produced the plural. The children in A→AB supplied the singular form of A but children in A→AA did not. Experiment 3 compared the performance of English-speaking and Japanese-speaking children in A→AA with common and novel nouns. The Japanese-speaking children (learning a language without a mandatory plural) supplied the singular form of A but the English-speaking children did not. The findings indicate young children learning English know there is a plural to be learned before they have fully worked out the rules of production or acquired the necessary singular–plural pairs for broad generalization.

The syllabic status of final consonants in early speech: a case study

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 682-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
IVAN YUEN ◽  
KELLY MILES ◽  
FELICITY COX ◽  
KATHERINE DEMUTH
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Closure Duration ◽  
Early Production ◽  
Early Speech ◽  
Epenthetic Vowel ◽  
Target Words ◽  
Learning English

ABSTRACTYoung children's first attempts at CVC words are often realized with the final consonant being heavily aspirated or followed by an epenthetic vowel (e.g. cat /kæt/ realized as [kæth] or [kætə]). This has led some to propose that young children represent word-final (coda) consonants as an onset-nucleus sequence (CV.Cv) (e.g. Goad & Brannen, 2003), raising questions about the syllabic status of the final consonant. To address this issue, we conducted an acoustic analysis of a child's early production of CVC, CVCh, and CVCV words between the ages of 1;3 and 1;5. Aside from aspiration, the results showed that there were no significant acoustic differences between the CVC and CVCh forms. In contrast, there were systematic acoustic differences in C2 closure duration between the CVC/CVCh and CVCV target words, suggesting that at least some children learning English have early coda representations for monosyllabic CVC words, whether heavily aspirated or not.

A metrical template account of children's weak syllable omissions from multisyllabic words

1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louann Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Learning English

ABSTRACTYoung children learning English as well as many other languages frequently omit weakly stressed syllables from multisyllabic words. In particular, they are more likely to omit weak syllables from word-initial positions than from word-internal or -final positions. For example, the weak syllable of a weak-strong (WS) word likegiraffeis much more likely to be omitted than the weak syllable of a SW word liketiger. Three hypotheses for this omission pattern have been offered. In two, children's weak syllable omissions reflect innate perceptual biases either to ignore initial weak syllables or to encode word-final syllables. In contrast, the SW Production Template Hypothesis states that children have a template for producing a strong syllable followed by an optional weak syllable. When they apply a series of SW templates to their intended utterances, weak syllables that do not fit the templates are more likely to be omitted than those that do. To compare the three hypotheses, young two-year-olds were asked to say four-syllable SWWS and WSWS nonsense words. Children's pattern of weak syllable preservations was highly consistent with the SW production template hypothesis, but not with the perception-based hypotheses. Implications of this research for children's function morpheme omissions and for the relation of metrical and segmental production templates are discussed.

scholarly journals LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY THROUGH HITS WEST SONGS IN STMIK STIKOM INDONESIA’S STUDENTS (INTEREST AND EFFECTIVENESS)

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
I Kadek Agus Bisena
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Millennial Generation ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Approach ◽  
Learning English

Song is a part of a person that can influence the emotions and thoughts. Nowdays millennial generation really like songs both to listen to and sing, especially western songs that are currently become hits songs. Previous studies have examined a lot about the effectiveness of using songs in learning English for young children. In this study, the authors wanted to examine the extent to which STMIK STIKOM Indonesia students' interest in learning English vocabulary through western hits songs, how to implement it properly, and how much effectiveness of using songs in learning English vocabulary. This study was designed using descriptive analysis through a linguistic approach.

Young children, sound-producing objects, and the shape bias

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-203
Author(s):  
Diana R. Dansereau
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Pretend Play ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Novel Object ◽  
Shape Bias ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Test Objects

There is evidence that, when given simple musical instruments, young children construct pretend play episodes centered on the shape of the objects rather than their sounds. This attention to shape has also been observed when children learn the names of novel objects. Such a “shape bias”, when engaging in pretend play with instruments and during linguistic tasks, may indicate the possibility that shape is a perceptually important attribute across contexts. The aim of this study was to determine whether children favor shape, color, or sound when identifying a novel object. In two studies, 3- to 5-year-olds were shown target objects that were given a novel name and shared one attribute (e.g., shape, sound) with test objects. During one trial, the objects were shaken to produce sound, and during another, the children manipulated the objects in order to produce sounds. In both experiments, children selected based on shape significantly more often ( p < .001) than chance rates, indicating a strong bias toward the shape of a novel object rather than the sound it produces during a cognitive task.

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