scholarly journals Social Inference May Guide Early Lexical Learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alayo Tripp ◽  
Naomi H. Feldman ◽  
William J. Idsardi
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Social Categorization ◽  
Social Reasoning ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Lexical Learning ◽  
Infant Looking

We incorporate social reasoning about groups of informants into a model of word learning, and show that the model accounts for infant looking behavior in tasks of both word learning and recognition. Simulation 1 models an experiment where 16-month-old infants saw familiar objects labeled either correctly or incorrectly, by either adults or audio talkers. Simulation 2 reinterprets puzzling data from the Switch task, an audiovisual habituation procedure wherein infants are tested on familiarized associations between novel objects and labels. Eight-month-olds outperform 14-month-olds on the Switch task when required to distinguish labels that are minimal pairs (e.g., “buk” and “puk”), but 14-month-olds' performance is improved by habituation stimuli featuring multiple talkers. Our modeling results support the hypothesis that beliefs about knowledgeability and group membership guide infant looking behavior in both tasks. These results show that social and linguistic development interact in non-trivial ways, and that social categorization findings in developmental psychology could have substantial implications for understanding linguistic development in realistic settings where talkers vary according to observable features correlated with social groupings, including linguistic, ethnic, and gendered groups.

Forming associations between language and sensorimotor traces during novel word learning

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
BIRGIT ÖTTL ◽  
CAROLIN DUDSCHIG ◽  
BARBARA KAUP
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Arm Movement ◽  
Learning Phase ◽  
Movement Direction ◽  
Lower Visual Field ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Multisensory Environment ◽  
Novel Word Learning

abstractEmbodied models of language comprehension are based on the assumption that words become associated with sensorimotor experiences during initial word learning. To test this hypothesis, adult participants learned artificial words as labels for novel objects in a multisensory environment. In a word learning phase, novel objects were located in the participant’s upper or lower visual field and participants learned the objects’ names by interacting with them. In a test phase, participants responded to the color of the words with either an upwards or a downwards directed arm movement in a Stroop-like paradigm. Responses were fastest when the movement direction was compatible with the word’s referent location (i.e., the location of the novel object in vertical space) during the learning phase. This finding suggests that sensorimotor experiences become associated with words during initial word learning. The results of the current study and implications for language learning are discussed.

scholarly journals Visual Event-Related Potentials to Novel Objects Predict Rapid Word Learning Ability in 20-Month-Olds

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (5-8) ◽  
pp. 308-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Borgström ◽  
Janne von Koss Torkildsen ◽  
Magnus Lindgren
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Related Potentials

Language experience and preschoolers' foreign word learning

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 642-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNIFER MENJIVAR ◽  
NAMEERA AKHTAR
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Old English ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Foreign Word ◽  
Novel Objects

Four-year-old English speakers (N = 48) who were monolingual, bilingual, or regularly exposed to a second language were taught what they were told were foreign labels for familiar and novel objects. When task demands were low, there was no difference in word learning among the three groups. However, when task demands were higher, bilinguals learned more words than monolingual children, and exposed children's performance fell between the two. These findings indicate that the bilingual word learning advantage seen in adults may begin as early as the preschool years.

scholarly journals Non-native phonemes in adult word learning: evidence from the N400m

2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1536) ◽  
pp. 3697-3709 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Dobel ◽  
Lothar Lagemann ◽  
Pienie Zwitserlood
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Native Language ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Learning Paradigm ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
Lexical Activation ◽  
Semantic Access ◽  
Novel Words

Newborns are equipped with a large phonemic inventory that becomes tuned to one's native language early in life. We review and add new data about how learning of a non-native phoneme can be accomplished in adults and how the efficiency of word learning can be assessed by neurophysiological measures. For this purpose, we studied the acquisition of the voiceless, bilabial fricative /Φ/ via a statistical-learning paradigm. Phonemes were embedded in minimal pairs of pseudowords, differing only with respect to the fricative (/aΦo/ versus /afo/). During learning, pseudowords were combined with pictures of objects with some combinations of pseudowords and pictures occurring more frequently than others. Behavioural data and the N400m component, as an index of lexical activation/semantic access, showed that participants had learned to associate the pseudowords with the pictures. However, they could not discriminate within the minimal pairs. Importantly, before learning, the novel words with the sound /Φ/ showed smaller N400 amplitudes than those with native phonemes, evidencing their non-word status. Learning abolished this difference indicating that /Φ/ had become integrated into the native category /f/, instead of establishing a novel category. Our data and review demonstrate that native phonemic categories are powerful attractors hampering the mastery of non-native contrasts.

Social categorization in interpersonal negotiation: How social structural factors shape negotiations

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 765-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphanie Demoulin ◽  
Cátia P. Teixeira
Keyword(s):  
Group Membership ◽  
Social Categorization ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Distributive Negotiation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Impact

Social categorization is a powerful determinant of social behavior. As group membership becomes salient, individuals come to behave as group members and, consequently, appraise interactions according to these salient group identities (Turner, 1987). The aim of the present article is to investigate the impact of social categorization on perceptions and appraisals of a distributive negotiation situation. An experiment is presented in which social categorization of the negotiation partner is manipulated. Results revealed that the social structural factors associated with the partner’s group (i.e. social status and group’s competition) influence fixed-pie perceptions as well as participants’ inferences about their counterpart’s target and resistance points. In addition, these effects are mediated by stereotypical evaluations of the counterpart in terms of warmth and competence, respectively.

scholarly journals Can young children learn words from a robot?

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Moriguchi ◽  
Takayuki Kanda ◽  
Hiroshi Ishiguro ◽  
Yoko Shimada ◽  
Shoji Itakura
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Preschool Children ◽  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Chance Level ◽  
Developmental Difference ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Better Than

Young children generally learn words from other people. Recent research has shown that children can learn new actions and skills from nonhuman agents. This study examines whether young children could learn words from a robot. Preschool children were shown a video in which either a woman (human condition) or a mechanical robot (robot condition) labeled novel objects. Then the children were asked to select the objects according to the names used in the video. The results revealed that children in the human condition were more likely to select the correct objects than those in the robot condition. Nevertheless, the five-year-old children in the robot condition performed significantly better than chance level, while the four-year olds did not. Thus there is a developmental difference in children’s potential to learn words from a robot. The results contribute to our understanding of how children interact with non-human agents. Keywords: developmental cybernetics; word learning; social cognition; cognitive development

scholarly journals Consistency of co-occurring actions influences young children’s word learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 190097 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah F. V. Eiteljoerge ◽  
Maurits Adam ◽  
Birgit Elsner ◽  
Nivedita Mani
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Simultaneous Presentation ◽  
Target Object ◽  
Multimodal Learning ◽  
Growth Curve Models ◽  
Consistent Condition ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Perceptual Abilities

Communication with young children is often multimodal in nature, involving, for example, language and actions. The simultaneous presentation of information from both domains may boost language learning by highlighting the connection between an object and a word, owing to temporal overlap in the presentation of multimodal input. However, the overlap is not merely temporal but can also covary in the extent to which particular actions co-occur with particular words and objects, e.g. carers typically produce a hopping action when talking about rabbits and a snapping action for crocodiles. The frequency with which actions and words co-occurs in the presence of the referents of these words may also impact young children’s word learning. We, therefore, examined the extent to which consistency in the co-occurrence of particular actions and words impacted children’s learning of novel word–object associations. Children (18 months, 30 months and 36–48 months) and adults were presented with two novel objects and heard their novel labels while different actions were performed on these objects, such that the particular actions and word–object pairings always co-occurred ( Consistent group) or varied across trials ( Inconsistent group). At test, participants saw both objects and heard one of the labels to examine whether participants recognized the target object upon hearing its label. Growth curve models revealed that 18-month-olds did not learn words for objects in either condition, and 30-month-old and 36- to 48-month-old children learned words for objects only in the Consistent condition, in contrast to adults who learned words for objects independent of the actions presented. Thus, consistency in the multimodal input influenced word learning in early childhood but not in adulthood. In terms of a dynamic systems account of word learning, our study shows how multimodal learning settings interact with the child’s perceptual abilities to shape the learning experience.

Mutual exclusivity and phonological novelty constrain word learning at 16 months

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 933-950 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMILY MATHER ◽  
KIM PLUNKETT
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Mutual Exclusivity ◽  
Novel Object ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Novel Objects

ABSTRACTStudies report that infants as young as 1 ; 3 to 1 ; 5 will seek out a novel object in response to hearing a novel label (e.g. Halberda, 2003; Markman, Wasow & Hansen, 2003). This behaviour is commonly known as the ‘mutual exclusivity’ response (Markman, 1989; 1990). However, evidence for mutual exclusivity does not imply that the infant has associated a novel label with a novel object. We used an intermodal preferential looking task to investigate whether infants aged 1 ; 4 could use mutual exclusivity to guide their association of novel labels with novel objects. The results show that infants can successfully map a novel label onto a novel object, provided that the novel label has no familiar phonological neighbours. Therefore, as early as 1 ; 4, infants can use mutual exclusivity to form novel word–object associations, although this process is constrained by the phonological novelty of a label.

Impact of Cyrillic on Native English Speakers’ Phono-lexical Acquisition of Russian

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Showalter
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Native Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Lexical Acquisition ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Pictures And Words ◽  
Lexical Learning

We investigated the influence of grapheme familiarity and native language grapheme–phoneme correspondences during second language lexical learning. Native English speakers learned Russian-like words via auditory presentations containing only familiar first language phones, pictured meanings, and exposure to either Cyrillic orthographic forms (Orthography condition) or the sequence <XXX> (No Orthography condition). Orthography participants saw three types of written forms: familiar-congruent (e.g., <KOM>-[kom]), familiar-incongruent (e.g., <PAT>-[rɑt]), and unfamiliar (e.g., <ФИЛ>-[fil]). At test, participants determined whether pictures and words matched according to what they saw during word learning. All participants performed near ceiling in all stimulus conditions, except for Orthography participants on words containing incongruent grapheme–phoneme correspondences. These results suggest that first language grapheme–phoneme correspondences can cause interference during second language phono-lexical acquisition. In addition, these results suggest that orthographic input effects are robust enough to interfere even when the input does not contain novel phones.

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