Song Hyun-Joo, Baillargeon Renée, Fisher Cynthia
Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2014 Mar 24;9(3):e92387. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092387. eCollection 2014.
How sophisticated are infants at using novel verbal information when reasoning about which of two objects an agent is likely to select? The present research examined the development of infants' ability to interpret a change from one novel word to another as signaling a possible change in which object the agent would choose next. In three experiments, 7- and 12-month-olds were familiarized to an event in which they heard a novel word ("A dax!") and then saw an agent reach for one of two distinct objects. During test, the infants heard a different novel word ("A pilk!") and then saw the agent grasp the same object or the other object. At 7 months, infants ignored the change in word and expected the agent to continue reaching for the same object. At 12 months, however, infants attended to the change in word: They realized that it signaled a possible change in the agent's upcoming actions, though they were unable to form a specific expectation about what these new actions might be, most likely due to their limited mutual-exclusivity assumption. Control conditions supported these interpretations. Together, these results suggest that by 12 months of age, infants understand not only that words are selected for communicative purposes, but also that a change from one novel word to another may signal a change in an agent's upcoming actions.
在推断一个主体可能会选择两个物体中的哪一个时，婴儿运用新颖的语言信息的能力有多成熟呢？本研究考察了婴儿将一个新词换成另一个新词理解为主体接下来可能会选择的物体发生变化的能力的发展情况。在三个实验中，7个月和12个月大的婴儿先熟悉一个事件，在这个事件中他们听到一个新词（“一个达克斯！”），然后看到一个主体伸手去拿两个不同物体中的一个。在测试过程中，婴儿听到一个不同的新词（“一个皮尔克！”），然后看到主体抓住同一个物体或另一个物体。7个月大的婴儿忽略了词语的变化，期望主体继续伸手去拿同一个物体。然而，12个月大的婴儿注意到了词语的变化：他们意识到这表明主体即将采取的行动可能会发生变化，不过他们无法对这些新行动具体是什么形成明确的预期，这很可能是由于他们有限的互斥性假设。控制条件支持了这些解释。总之，这些结果表明，到12个月大时，婴儿不仅明白词语是为了交流目的而被选用的，而且还明白从一个新词换成另一个新词可能意味着主体即将采取的行动发生了变化。
