3- to 4-year-old children adapt to recent experience to learn novel words

"Infants and young children can use linguistic context to infer the meaning of novel words, and they can also adjust their expectations about the current linguistic context based on recent linguistic input. Havron et al. (2019) were the first to show that preschool children can use recently adapted expectations about the usage of a familiar phrase to guide word learning. The current study adopted their design and replicated this finding in English-speaking children. We used an ambiguous English phrase, the baby, that can be followed by nouns (e.g., ""the baby monkeys"") or by verbs (e.g., ""the baby sleeps"") and thus creates ambiguity when followed by made-up words (e.g., ""the baby gorps""). 3- to 4-year-olds were first exposed to induction trials in which the critical phrase the baby was consistently followed by familiar nouns (the noun condition) or by familiar verbs (the verb condition). Later, when they heard the critical phrase followed by novel words during the test phase, children in the verb condition were more likely to interpret the novel words as verbs than were children in the noun condition, suggesting that their adapted expectations influenced word learning. Moreover, the current study had a baseline condition in addition to Havron et al.'s (2019) original design, in which children did not receive any exposure to the critical phrase until the test phase. Comparisons between the baseline condition and the noun and verb conditions revealed that only children in the verb condition showed the induction effect; children in the noun and baseline conditions did not differ in their interpretations of the novel words. We discuss two possible mechanisms underlying our findings and propose directions for future research."

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Yu, Yukun

Contributors dc:contributor

• Fisher, Cynthia

• Adaptation
• language acquisition
• word learning
• children
• ambiguity

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2021 Yukun Yu

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113337

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113337