{"id":{"repo_id":"plymouth","oai_identifier":"oai:pearl.plymouth.ac.uk:psy-theses-1125"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/plymouth/oai:pearl.plymouth.ac.uk:psy-theses-1125","repository":{"repo_id":"plymouth","name":"University of Plymouth","base_url":"https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/do/oai"},"display":{"title":"What Relationships Exist Between Words In The Lexical-Semantic Systems Of Toddlers?","abstract":"Investigating how infants first establish relationships between words is a necessary step towards understanding the qualitative shift children make to an organised and complex interconnected network of semantic relationships which characterises a mature, adult lexical-semantic system. Since little is known about the word-word associations in infants that establish this network of meanings (Arias-Trejo & Plunkett, 2009), this thesis sought to, first, document the word associations (WA)s that young monolingual and bilingual children produce and then compare these to adult WAs. A concurrent aim was to establish a database of child-specific WAs as a resource for future studies. Second, to understand how a network of meaning establishes in different groups during infancy, an online semantic priming paradigm was developed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim was to see how words are organised in the emergent lexical-semantic system by replicating in-lab findings and extending these to explore different infant groups. In parallel, this paradigm was used to validate the WAs found in monolingual and bilingual children. Findings from Chapter 1 revealed that children share some of the WAs that adults exhibit in a mature lexical-semantic system. However, a large number of WAs shared by children were not represented in the WA norms of adults. This could indicate that adult norms under-represent the associations of children, as they might not capture the unique developmental stage and life experience of 3-year-olds. This research presents a resource of child-specific associated word pair stimuli for future studies. Findings from Chapter 2 indicate that lexical-semantic links might be more robust in the lexical-semantic system of a 3-year-old when they capture associative meaning compared to taxonomic meaning. Furthermore, running infant studies online can replicate in-lab findings, though it remains unclear if this is only true of certain paradigms.","abstract_html":"Investigating how infants first establish relationships between words is a necessary step towards understanding the qualitative shift children make to an organised and complex interconnected network of semantic relationships which characterises a mature, adult lexical-semantic system. Since little is known about the word-word associations in infants that establish this network of meanings (Arias-Trejo & Plunkett, 2009), this thesis sought to, first, document the word associations (WA)s that young monolingual and bilingual children produce and then compare these to adult WAs. A concurrent aim was to establish a database of child-specific WAs as a resource for future studies. Second, to understand how a network of meaning establishes in different groups during infancy, an online semantic priming paradigm was developed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim was to see how words are organised in the emergent lexical-semantic system by replicating in-lab findings and extending these to explore different infant groups. In parallel, this paradigm was used to validate the WAs found in monolingual and bilingual children. Findings from Chapter 1 revealed that children share some of the WAs that adults exhibit in a mature lexical-semantic system. However, a large number of WAs shared by children were not represented in the WA norms of adults. This could indicate that adult norms under-represent the associations of children, as they might not capture the unique developmental stage and life experience of 3-year-olds. This research presents a resource of child-specific associated word pair stimuli for future studies. Findings from Chapter 2 indicate that lexical-semantic links might be more robust in the lexical-semantic system of a 3-year-old when they capture associative meaning compared to taxonomic meaning. Furthermore, running infant studies online can replicate in-lab findings, though it remains unclear if this is only true of certain paradigms.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Fitzpatrick, Nadine"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Caroline Floccia, Jeremy Goslin"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2023,"date_issued":"2023-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2023-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:50:32Z","subjects":["semantic priming","taxonomic meaning","associative meaning","word association","free association","language development","infant","toddler","child development","adult associative norms","online testing","Gorilla Experiment Builder","monolingual English","bilingual"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["10026.1/20623"],"render_values":[{"text":"10026.1/20623","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/psy-theses/126","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Caroline Floccia, Jeremy Goslin"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Fitzpatrick, Nadine"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2023-01-01T08:00:00Z"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["semantic priming","taxonomic meaning","associative meaning","word association","free association","language development","infant","toddler","child development","adult associative norms","online testing","Gorilla Experiment Builder","monolingual English","bilingual"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["10026.1/20623","https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/psy-theses/126"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Investigating how infants first establish relationships between words is a necessary step towards understanding the qualitative shift children make to an organised and complex interconnected network of semantic relationships which characterises a mature, adult lexical-semantic system. Since little is known about the word-word associations in infants that establish this network of meanings (Arias-Trejo & Plunkett, 2009), this thesis sought to, first, document the word associations (WA)s that young monolingual and bilingual children produce and then compare these to adult WAs. A concurrent aim was to establish a database of child-specific WAs as a resource for future studies. Second, to understand how a network of meaning establishes in different groups during infancy, an online semantic priming paradigm was developed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim was to see how words are organised in the emergent lexical-semantic system by replicating in-lab findings and extending these to explore different infant groups. In parallel, this paradigm was used to validate the WAs found in monolingual and bilingual children. Findings from Chapter 1 revealed that children share some of the WAs that adults exhibit in a mature lexical-semantic system. However, a large number of WAs shared by children were not represented in the WA norms of adults. This could indicate that adult norms under-represent the associations of children, as they might not capture the unique developmental stage and life experience of 3-year-olds. This research presents a resource of child-specific associated word pair stimuli for future studies. Findings from Chapter 2 indicate that lexical-semantic links might be more robust in the lexical-semantic system of a 3-year-old when they capture associative meaning compared to taxonomic meaning. Furthermore, running infant studies online can replicate in-lab findings, though it remains unclear if this is only true of certain paradigms."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["What Relationships Exist Between Words In The Lexical-Semantic Systems Of Toddlers?"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Caroline Floccia, Jeremy Goslin"],"dc:creator":["Fitzpatrick, Nadine"],"dc:date.issued":["2023-01-01T08:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Investigating how infants first establish relationships between words is a necessary step towards understanding the qualitative shift children make to an organised and complex interconnected network of semantic relationships which characterises a mature, adult lexical-semantic system. Since little is known about the word-word associations in infants that establish this network of meanings (Arias-Trejo & Plunkett, 2009), this thesis sought to, first, document the word associations (WA)s that young monolingual and bilingual children produce and then compare these to adult WAs. A concurrent aim was to establish a database of child-specific WAs as a resource for future studies. Second, to understand how a network of meaning establishes in different groups during infancy, an online semantic priming paradigm was developed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim was to see how words are organised in the emergent lexical-semantic system by replicating in-lab findings and extending these to explore different infant groups. In parallel, this paradigm was used to validate the WAs found in monolingual and bilingual children. Findings from Chapter 1 revealed that children share some of the WAs that adults exhibit in a mature lexical-semantic system. However, a large number of WAs shared by children were not represented in the WA norms of adults. This could indicate that adult norms under-represent the associations of children, as they might not capture the unique developmental stage and life experience of 3-year-olds. This research presents a resource of child-specific associated word pair stimuli for future studies. Findings from Chapter 2 indicate that lexical-semantic links might be more robust in the lexical-semantic system of a 3-year-old when they capture associative meaning compared to taxonomic meaning. Furthermore, running infant studies online can replicate in-lab findings, though it remains unclear if this is only true of certain paradigms."],"dc:identifier":["10026.1/20623","https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/psy-theses/126"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:subject":["semantic priming","taxonomic meaning","associative meaning","word association","free association","language development","infant","toddler","child development","adult associative norms","online testing","Gorilla Experiment Builder","monolingual English","bilingual"],"dc:title":["What Relationships Exist Between Words In The Lexical-Semantic Systems Of Toddlers?"],"dc:type":["Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:50:32Z"}