Language Acquisition Junior Research Group, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany.
Dev Psychol. 2013 Jun;49(6):1036-44. doi: 10.1037/a0029382. Epub 2012 Jul 30.
What is the relative salience of different aspects of word meaning in the developing lexicon? The current study examines the time-course of retrieval of semantic and color knowledge associated with words during toddler word recognition: At what point do toddlers orient toward an image of a yellow cup upon hearing color-matching words such as "banana" (typically yellow) relative to unrelated words (e.g., "house")? Do children orient faster to semantic matching images relative to color matching images, for example, orient faster to an image of a cookie relative to a yellow cup upon hearing the word "banana"? The results strongly suggest a prioritization of semantic information over color information in children's word-referent mappings. This indicates that even for natural objects (e.g., food, animals that are more likely to have a prototypical color), semantic knowledge is a more salient aspect of toddler's word meaning than color knowledge. For 24-month-old Dutch toddlers, bananas are thus more edible than they are yellow.
在发展中的词汇中，不同方面的词义相对突出程度如何？本研究考察了幼儿在单词识别过程中与单词相关的语义和颜色知识检索的时间进程：当听到匹配颜色的单词（如“banana”通常是黄色）时，幼儿相对于不相关的单词（例如“house”），会在什么时候更倾向于指向一个黄色杯子的图像？例如，当听到“banana”这个词时，孩子们是否会更快地指向与语义匹配的图像，而不是与颜色匹配的图像，比如更快地指向一个饼干的图像而不是一个黄色杯子？研究结果强烈表明，在儿童的单词指代映射中，语义信息优先于颜色信息。这表明，即使对于自然物体（例如食物、更有可能具有典型颜色的动物），语义知识也是幼儿词义的一个更突出方面，而不是颜色知识。对于 24 个月大的荷兰幼儿来说，香蕉更像是可食用的，而不是黄色的。
