scholarly journals Influence of causal language on causal understanding: A comparison between Swiss-German and Turkish

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ebru Ger ◽  
Larissa Stuber ◽  
Aylin C. Küntay ◽  
Tilbe Goksun ◽  
Sabine Stoll ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Language Support ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Morphological Cues ◽  
Language Condition ◽  
Causal Language

Young children have difficulties understanding untypical causal relations. While we know that hearing a causal description facilitates this understanding, less is known about what particular features of causal language are responsible for this facilitation. Here, we asked: (1) Do syntactic and morphological cues in the grammatical structure of sentences facilitate the extraction of causal meaning, and (2) do these different cues influence this facilitation to a different degree. We studied children learning either Swiss-German or Turkish, two languages which differ in their expression of causality. Swiss-German predominantly uses lexical causatives (e.g., schniidä (cut)), which lack a formal marker to denote causality. Turkish, alongside lexical causatives, uses morphological causatives, which formally mark causation (e.g., ye (eat) vs. yeDIr (feed)). We assessed 2.5- to 3.5-year-old children’s understanding of untypical cause-effect relations described with either non-causal language (e.g., Here is a cube and a car) or causal language using a pseudo-verb (e.g., lexical: The cube gorps the car). We tested n = 135 Turkish-learning (non-causal, lexical, and morphological conditions) and n = 90 Swiss-German-learning children (non-causal and lexical conditions). Children in both language groups performed better in the causal language condition(s) than the non-causal language condition. Further, Turkish-learning children’s performance in both the lexical and morphological conditions was similar to Swiss-German-learning children in the lexical condition, and did not differ from each other. These findings suggest that the structural cues of causal language support children’s understanding of untypical causal relations, regardless of the type of construction.

scholarly journals Influence of causal language on causal understanding: A comparison between Swiss German and Turkish

2021 ◽  
Vol 210 ◽  
pp. 105182
Author(s):  
Ebru Ger ◽  
Larissa Stuber ◽  
Aylin C. Küntay ◽  
Tilbe Göksun ◽  
Sabine Stoll ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
Causal Language

Causal Invariance as an Essential Constraint for Creating a Causal Representation of the World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia W. Cheng ◽  
Hongjing Lu
Keyword(s):  
Search Space ◽  
Causal Learning ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Intuitive Reasoning ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Specific Description ◽  
The World

This chapter illustrates the representational nature of causal understanding of the world and examines its implications for causal learning. The vastness of the search space of causal relations, given the representational aspect of the problem, implies that powerful constraints are essential for arriving at adaptive causal relations. The chapter reviews (1) why causal invariance—the sameness of how a causal mechanism operates across contexts—is an essential constraint for causal learning in intuitive reasoning, (2) a psychological causal-learning theory that assumes causal invariance as a defeasible default, (3) some ways in which the computational role of causal invariance in causal learning can become obscured, and (4) the roles of causal invariance as a general aspiration, a default assumption, a criterion for hypothesis revision, and a domain-specific description. The chapter also reviews a puzzling discrepancy in the human and non-human causal and associative learning literatures and offers a potential explanation.

scholarly journals The scope and limits of overimitation in the transmission of artefact culture

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1567) ◽  
pp. 1158-1167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek E. Lyons ◽  
Diana H. Damrosch ◽  
Jennifer K. Lin ◽  
Deanna M. Macris ◽  
Frank C. Keil
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Novel Object ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Learning Function ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Learning Processes ◽  
Unfamiliar Object

Children are generally masterful imitators, both rational and flexible in their reproduction of others' actions. After observing an adult operating an unfamiliar object, however, young children will frequently overimitate , reproducing not only the actions that were causally necessary but also those that were clearly superfluous. Why does overimitation occur? We argue that when children observe an adult intentionally acting on a novel object, they may automatically encode all of the adult's actions as causally meaningful. This process of automatic causal encoding (ACE) would generally guide children to accurate beliefs about even highly opaque objects. In situations where some of an adult's intentional actions were unnecessary, however, it would also lead to persistent overimitation. Here, we undertake a thorough examination of the ACE hypothesis, reviewing prior evidence and offering three new experiments to further test the theory. We show that children will persist in overimitating even when doing so is costly (underscoring the involuntary nature of the effect), but also that the effect is constrained by intentionality in a manner consistent with its posited learning function. Overimitation may illuminate not only the structure of children's causal understanding, but also the social learning processes that support our species' artefact-centric culture.

scholarly journals Young children do not require perceptual-motor feedback to solve Aesop’s Fable tasks

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Miller ◽  
Sarah A. Jelbert ◽  
Elsa Loissel ◽  
Alex H. Taylor ◽  
Nicola S. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Water Level ◽  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Current Experiment ◽  
Water Displacement ◽  
Tube Size ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Object Properties

Aesop’s Fable tasks—in which subjects drop objects into a water-filled tube to raise the water level and obtain out-of-reach floating rewards —have been used to test for causal understanding of water displacement in both young children and non-human animals. However, a number of alternative explanations for success on these tasks have yet to be ruled out. One hypothesis is that subjects may respond to perceptual-motor feedback: repeating those actions that bring the reward incrementally closer. Here, we devised a novel, forced-choice version of the Aesop’s Fable task to assess whether subjects can solve water displacement tasks when this type of feedback is removed. Subjects had to select only one set of objects, or one type of tube, into which all objects were dropped at once, and the effect the objects had on the water level was visually concealed. In the current experiment, fifty-five 5–9 year old children were tested in six different conditions in which we either varied object properties (floating vs. sinking, hollow vs. solid, large vs. small and too large vs. small objects), the water level (high vs. low) and/or the tube size (narrow vs. wide). We found that children aged 8–9 years old were able to solve most of the water displacement tasks on their first trial, without any opportunity for feedback, suggesting that they mentally simulated the results of their actions before making a choice. Children aged 5–7 years solved two conditions on their first trial (large vs. small objects and high- vs. low-water levels), and learnt to solve most of the remaining conditions over five trials. The developmental pattern shown here is comparable to previous studies using the standard Aesop’s Fable task, where eight year olds are typically successful from their first trial and 5–7 year olds learn to pass over five trials. Thus, our results indicate that children do not depend on perceptual-motor feedback to solve these water displacement tasks. The forced-choice paradigm we describe could be used comparatively to test whether or not non-human animals require visual feedback to solve water displacement tasks.

Teaching and Coaching Caregivers in a Guatemalan Orphanage to Promote Language in Young Children

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Allison Hatcher ◽  
Jennifer Grisham-Brown ◽  
Kenneth Sese
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Intervention Program ◽  
Its Region ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Language Support ◽  
Support Strategies

Abstract Providing evidence-based early intervention (EI) to caregivers is an effective way to promote development in young children. EI services in the United States have decreased risk factors associated with language impairment (LI) as they help improve both short and long-term outcomes for both caregivers and children. The positive results for EI services in the U.S. may generalize to Latin American countries, namely Guatemala. Guatemala has one of the weakest education systems in its region as well as poor access to early childhood services for low-SES and other disadvantaged groups. The purpose of this study was to provide brief EI services to a Guatemalan orphanage by training caregivers to implement naturalistic language support strategies with the young children they care for who are at risk for language impairment. Results indicate a brief caregiver-implemented intervention program was effective for teaching caregivers to implement language support strategies. Recommendations are made for future research as well as implications for policy and practice. Additional research is needed to determine how to facilitate maintenance over time.

scholarly journals Romanikielinen ja romanikieleen pohjautuva kieliaines Suomen romanien suomenkielisessä verkkokeskustelussa

Virittäjä ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 121 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirkka Salo
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Discussion Board ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Internet Discussion ◽  
Definition Of

Tiivistelmä Tämä artikkeli tarkastelee romanikielisten ja romanikieleen pohjautuvien sanojen käyttöä Suomen romanien suomenkielisessä verkkokeskustelussa. Aineistona ovat verkkokeskustelupalstan suomi24.fi-romano tekstit  ajalta 22.2.2003 – 18.7.2013. Tutkimusmetodi on tutkimusaineiston empiiriseen tarkasteluun perustuva. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on kuvata romanikieltä sisältävää suomea pararomanien määrittelyn valossa aiemmin tutkimattoman verkkokeskustelun kielen avulla. Pararomaneilla tarkoitetaan kielimuotoja, joista on kadonnut romanikielen kielioppi. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan myös romanien suomenkielen varieteetissa esiintyvien romanikielisten elementtien alkuperää, sanaluokkia ja taivutusta. Suomen romanit käyttävät verkkokeskustelussa suomen yleis- ja puhekielen ja taivutetun Suomen romanikielen lisäksi suomen varieteettia, jossa on romanikieleen perustuvia sanoja, kieliopillisia muotoja ja lauseita. Aineiston romanikieleen pohjautuva sanasto edustaa alkuperältään seitsemäätoista eri kieliryhmää. Suurin osa lekseemeistä perustuu historialliseen indoarjalaiseen sanastoon. Kontaktikielten vaikutusta on huomattavasti vähemmän, yleisimpinä skandinaaviset vaikutteet. Sanoja taivutetaan useissa eri taivutusmuodoissa sekä suomen että romanikielen kieliopin mukaan. Joissakin sanoissa on sekä suomen että romanikielen taivutuksen aineksia. Kaikki sanaluokat esiintyvät vähintään kerran, mutta substantiivit ovat selvästi yleisin sanaluokka. Tämä on yleinen ilmiö lainautumisessa ja kielen rapautumisessa. Suomenkielisten kommenttien romanikielinen sanasto on suppeaa ja romanikielisten sanojen käyttö vaihtelee yksilöllisesti. Nämä seikat kertovat yleensä kielitaidon ja kielen käytön yleisestä vähenemisestä. Sanojen muodostaminen on verkkokeskustelussa kuitenkin luovaa. Taivutetusta Suomen romanikielestä voidaan ottaa käyttöön uusia,  myös kieliopillisia romanikielisiä elementtejä. Siten verkkokeskustelun etnolektiin ei sovi pararomanin määrittely. Avainsanat: suomi, romani, etnolekti, leksikko, taivutus, verkkokeskustelu   Romani and Romani-based words and structures in Finnish web discussion of the Finnish Roma This article investigates the use of Romani and Romani-based-words inweb discussion of the Finnish Roma. The data consist of the whole archive of Internet discussion board suomi24.fi-romano from date 22.2.2003 to date 18.7.2013. The data are studied empirically. The aim of this study is to compare the ethnolect of the Finnish Roma against the definition of Para-Romani. Para-Romanis have the grammatical structure of another language and only vocabulary from Romani. The origin, the use of parts of speech and inflection of the Romani lexemes in Finnish sentences have also been studied for this article. Finnish Roma use in their web discussion both Finnish and Romani but also the variety of Finnish, which has words, grammatical forms and sentences based on Romani. The vocabulary based on Romani represents in its origin  seventeen different language groups, most of them on the historical Indo-Arian languages. The effect of contact languages is considerably smaller, and the most common influences are the Scandinavian ones. The Romani-based-words are used in several inflected forms of Finnish and Romani grammar. Some words include structures of both languages. All parts of speech occur at least once in the Romani-based-vocabulary but nouns are notably the most common. This is a common phenomenon in borrowing. The Romani vocabulary in Finnish comments in the data is narrow and the use of Romani words varies individually. These facts tell usually about weakening of the language skills and decrease in the use of the language. Hovewer, constructing the Romani-based- or Romani-mixed-words is creative in web discussions. The ethnolect of the Finnish Roma takes also grammatical linguistic elements from inflected Romani language. So, the definition of pararomani does not fit to the ethnolect of web discussions of the Finnish Roma. Key words: Finnish, Romani, ethnolect, lexicon, inflection, web discussion    

Word Associations from Preschool Children Collected by the Continued Sentence Associations Method

1970 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 13-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray A. Newman
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Beginning Reading ◽  
New Method ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Sequential Dependencies ◽  
Reading Materials ◽  
Conventional Methods

In the first of two studies a new method of collecting word associations, Continued Sentence Associations (CSA), was compared with Continued Associations (CA), a representative of more conventional methods. Using young children as Ss, the CSA method has 3 advantages over conventional association methods: (a) CSA seem more natural for children than CA; (b) CSA permit associative measures from young children for parts of speech other than nouns and adjectives; (c) CSA allow analyses of sequential dependencies, grammatical structure, optimum positioning of specific words in a sentence, and frequencies of regularly occurring phrases. In the second study CSA were collected from 27 young children for 157 frequently occurring words. The data in this study may be of practical value to persons who design beginning reading materials.

scholarly journals Psychological and pedagogical approach to accompanying students with delayed speech development in the context of digitalization

2021 ◽  
Vol 273 ◽  
pp. 12095
Author(s):  
Natalia Abashina ◽  
Natalia Berdnikova
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Motor Skills ◽  
Medical Personnel ◽  
Speech Development ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
Online Technologies ◽  
Development Delay ◽  
Speech Therapist ◽  
Native Speech

The article discusses the psychological and pedagogical approach to accompanying young children with delayed speech development (delay in speech development manifests itself in a slower pace of mastering native speech by children under three years of age, underdevelopment of the vocabulary, lack of formation of expressive speech, lack of phrasal and coherent speech etc.). The purpose of the study is to develop a program of psychological and pedagogical support for young children with delayed speech development. During the testing of the program, special attention was paid to the processes of development of fine, general and articulatory motor skills of young children in various types of activity (play, cognitive, productive, communicative, etc.); the formation of mental processes (perception, thinking, memory, etc.); speech development of children (understanding of an adult’s speech, development of auditory perception, correction of sound pronunciation, formation of a passive vocabulary, an increase in the volume of an active vocabulary, development of coherent speech, grammatical structure of speech, etc.); interaction of specialists and parents of young children (teacher-psychologist, speech therapist, teachers, educators, medical personnel, etc.) using offline and online technologies (consultations, workshops, seminars, open classes, etc.). As a result of approbation of the program in young children with delayed speech development, there were positive changes in the formation of speech and non-speech functions (understanding of the speech of others, the formation of a dialogue form of speech, the development of the motor sphere, etc.).

scholarly journals The emerging causal understanding of institutional objects

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Noyes ◽  
Frank Keil ◽  
Yarrow Dunham
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Social Collective

Institutional objects, such as money, drivers’ licenses, and borders, have functions because of their social roles rather than their immediate physical properties. These objects are causally different than standard artifacts (e.g. hammers, chairs, and cars), sharing more commonality with other social roles. Thus, they inform psychological theories of human-made objects as well as children’s emerging understanding of social reality. We examined whether children (N = 180, ages 4-9) differentiate institutional objects from standard artifacts. Specifically, we examine whether children understand that mutual intentions (i.e., the intentions of a social collective) underlie the functional affordances of institutional objects in ways that they do not for standard artifacts. We find that young children assimilate institutional objects into their intuitive theories of standard artifacts; children begin to differentiate between the domains in the elementary school years.

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