Acquisition of the counting principles during the subset-knower stages: Insights from children’s errors

Studies on children’s understanding of counting examine when and how children acquire the cardinal principle: the idea that the last word in a counted set reflects the cardinal value of the set. Using Wynn’s (1990) Give-N Task, researchers classify children who can count to generate large sets as having acquired the cardinal principle (cardinal-principle-knowers) and those who cannot as lacking knowledge of it (subset-knowers). However, recent studies have provided a more nuanced view of number word acquisition. Here, we explore this view by examining the developmental progression of the counting principles with an aim to elucidate the gradual elements that lead to children successfully generating sets and being classified as CP-knowers on the Give-N Task. Specifically, we test the claim that subset-knowers lack cardinal principle knowledge by separating children’s understanding of the cardinal principle from their ability to apply and implement counting procedures. We also ask when knowledge of Gelman & Gallistel’s (1978) other how-to-count principles emerge in development. We analyzed how often children violated the three how-to-count principles in a secondary analysis of Give-N data (N = 86). We found that children already have knowledge of the cardinal principle prior to becoming CP-knowers, and that understanding of the stable-order and word-object correspondence principles likely emerged earlier. These results suggest that gradual development may best characterize children’s acquisition of the counting principles, and that learning to coordinate all three principles represents an additional step beyond learning them individually.

ETHYMOLOGY OF MEDICAL TERMS TRANSLATED INTO UZBEK FROM OTHER LANGUAGES

This article of the author is devoted to the etymology of medical terms that have been introduced into the Uzbek language from other languages. It also discusses the vocabulary, socio-historical development of the Uzbek language, its relationship with other languages and the peculiarities of word acquisition. The article analyzes medical terms, mainly from Arabic to Uzbek. In the process of analysis, the origin and semantic features of these lexical units have been thoroughly studied theoretically and practically. In this regard, the author effectively used scientific sources in Uzbek and Russian languages, as well as various dictionaries and research papers, and expressed his scientific hypothesis. Instead, he drew relevant scientific conclusions on the subject by referring to examples and evidence that differentiate the same concepts and phenomena. In particular, the article describes the etymology and national-cultural features of medical terms borrowed from Arabic into Uzbek - linguoculturology on the basis of historical and synchronous, comparative and component analysis methods. For example, the use of the complication lexeme in the Uzbek language in the sense of a sign, trace, specific feature, which appeared or appeared after an event, is associated with modern medicine in the example of today’s infectious, acute respiratory disease pandemic covid-2019. Attention is also paid to the synonym of the complication lexeme in the Uzbek language and its homonym. Many such original examples can be cited from the article. So, all of the above in a sense determines the scientific-theoretical and practical value of this article. KEYWORDS: etymology, semantics, grammar, structure, cell, masdar, sukun, uzv, cultural linguistics, component, content, lexeme, term, phraseme, neologism, respirator, pandemic, anomaly.

Acquisition and long-term memory of object names in a sample of Gifted Word Learner dogs

Dogs with a vocabulary of object names are rare and are considered uniquely gifted. In a few cases, these Gifted Word Learner (GWL) dogs have presented cognitive skills that are functionally similar to those of human infants. However, the acquisition rate of new object names and the ability of GWL dogs to form long-term memories of those is unknown. In this study, we examine the ability of six GWL dogs to acquire the names of new objects in a short period and to retain those in their long-term memory without post-acquisition exposures. In Experiments 1 and 2, the dogs were tested on their ability to learn, during social interactions with their owners, the names of 6 and 12 new toys respectively, in one week. In Experiments 3 and 4, the dogs' memory of these objects was tested after one and two months. GWL dogs typically learned the names of the new objects and remembered those. We suggest that dogs with knowledge of object names could be a powerful model for studying mental mechanisms related to word acquisition in a non-human species.

Rapid microstructural plasticity in the cortical semantic network following a short language learning session

Despite the clear importance of language in our life, our vital ability to quickly and effectively learn new words and meanings is neurobiologically poorly understood. Conventional knowledge maintains that language learning—especially in adulthood—is slow and laborious. Furthermore, its structural basis remains unclear. Even though behavioural manifestations of learning are evident near instantly, previous neuroimaging work across a range of semantic categories has largely studied neural changes associated with months or years of practice. Here, we address rapid neuroanatomical plasticity accompanying new lexicon acquisition, specifically focussing on the learning of action-related language, which has been linked to the brain’s motor systems. Our results show that it is possible to measure and to externally modulate (using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of motor cortex) cortical microanatomic reorganisation after mere minutes of new word learning. Learning-induced microstructural changes, as measured by diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) and machine learning-based analysis, were evident in prefrontal, temporal, and parietal neocortical sites, likely reflecting integrative lexico-semantic processing and formation of new memory circuits immediately during the learning tasks. These results suggest a structural basis for the rapid neocortical word encoding mechanism and reveal the causally interactive relationship of modal and associative brain regions in supporting learning and word acquisition.

Development of Abstract Word Knowledge

The development of children’s word knowledge is an important testing ground for the embodied account of word meaning, which proposes that word meanings are grounded in sensorimotor systems. Acquisition of abstract words, in particular, is a noted challenge for strong accounts of embodiment. We examined acquisition of abstract word meanings, using data on development of vocabulary knowledge from early school to University ages. We tested two specific proposals for how abstract words are learned: the affective embodiment account, that emotional experience is key to learning abstract word meanings, and the learning through language proposal, that abstract words are acquired through language experience. We found support for the affective embodiment account: word valence, interoception, and mouth action all facilitated abstract word acquisition more than concrete word acquisition. We tested the learning through language proposal by investigating whether words that appear in more diverse linguistic contexts are earlier acquired. Results showed that contextual diversity facilitated vocabulary acquisition, but did so for both abstract and concrete words. Our results provide evidence that emotion and sensorimotor systems are important to children’s acquisition of abstract words, but there is still considerable variance to be accounted for by other factors. We offer suggestions for future research to examine the acquisition of abstract vocabulary.

Computer-Based Reading Interventions with a Post-Secondary Student with Intellectual Disability: Self-Determined and Fixed Response Intervals

Working with a post-secondary student with intellectual disability, an adapted alternating treatments design was used to compare sight-word acquisition across three computer-delivered learning trial interventions: one with fixed 5-s response intervals, another with fixed 1-s response intervals, and a third with self-determined intervals. Visual analysis of session-series graphs suggest that all three interventions increased sight-word acquisition with the 5-s and self-determined interventions causing more steady and consistent learning per session than the 1-s intervention. Analysis of the time-series graph suggests that the self-determined intervention caused superior learning rates to the other interventions. From an applied perspective, the self-determined intervention is the most appropriate remedial procedure for this student because it resulted in the most rapid learning. Discussion focuses on the value of making relative-effectiveness decisions based on measures of learning as a function of time spent learning (learning speed) versus measures of learning as a function of sessions or trials.

Modeling Age of Acquisition Norms Using Transformer Networks

The age at which children acquire words is an important psycholinguistic property for modeling the growth of children's semantic networks. Much work over the years has explored how to effectively exploit statistical models to predict the age at which a word will be acquired, ranging from simple linear regression to LSA and skip-gram. However, thus far no work has explored whether transformers are any better at modeling word acquisition, despite the superior performance they have achieved on a wide variety of natural language processing (NLP) benchmarks. In this paper, we explore using several transformer models to predict the age of acquisition norms for several datasets. We evaluate the quality of our models using various experiments based on prior work and compare the transformers against two baseline models. We obtain promising results overall, as the transformers can outperform the baselines in most cases.

Phonological neighborhood measures and multisyllabic word acquisition in children

Multisyllabic words constitute a large portion of children's vocabulary. However, the relationship between phonological neighborhood density and English multisyllabic word learning is poorly understood. We examine this link in three, four and six year old children using a corpus-based approach. While we were able to replicate the well-accepted positive association between CVC word acquisition and neighborhood density, no similar relationship was found for multisyllabic words, despite testing multiple novel neighborhood measures. This finding raises the intriguing possibility that phonological organization of the mental lexicon may play a fundamentally different role in the acquisition of more complex words.