Taxitari Loukia, Twomey Katherine E, Westermann Gert, Mani Nivedita
Department of Secondary General Education, Ministry of Education and Culture, Nicosia, Cyprus.
Division of Human Communication, Development and Hearing, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Lang Learn Dev. 2019 Oct 1;16(1):1-21. doi: 10.1080/15475441.2019.1670184. eCollection 2020.
In this series of experiments, we tested the limits of young infants' word learning and generalization abilities in light of recent findings reporting sophisticated word learning abilities in the first year of life. Ten-month-old infants were trained with two word-object pairs and tested with either the same or different members of the corresponding categories. In Experiment 1, infants showed successful learning of the word-object associations, when trained and tested with a single exemplar from each category. In Experiment 2, infants were presented with multiple within-category items during training but failed to learn the word-object associations. In Experiment 3, infants were presented with a single exemplar from each category during training, and failed to generalize words to a new category exemplar. However, when infants were trained with items from perceptually and conceptually distinct categories in Experiment 4, they showed weak evidence for generalization of words to novel members of the corresponding categories. It is suggested that word learning in the first year begins as the formation of simple associations between words and objects that become enriched as experience with objects, words and categories accumulates across development.
在这一系列实验中，鉴于最近有研究报告称婴儿在出生后的第一年就具备复杂的词汇学习能力，我们测试了小婴儿词汇学习和泛化能力的极限。我们对10个月大的婴儿进行了两组单词-物体配对训练，并使用相应类别的相同或不同成员进行测试。在实验1中，当用每个类别的单个范例进行训练和测试时，婴儿成功地学会了单词-物体关联。在实验2中，训练期间向婴儿展示了多个类别内的物品，但他们未能学会单词-物体关联。在实验3中，训练期间向婴儿展示了每个类别的单个范例，他们未能将单词泛化到新的类别范例。然而，在实验4中，当用来自感知和概念上不同类别的物品对婴儿进行训练时，他们表现出了将单词泛化到相应类别新成员的微弱证据。研究表明，婴儿在出生后的第一年，词汇学习始于单词和物体之间简单关联的形成，随着对物体、单词和类别的经验在整个发育过程中的积累，这种关联会变得更加丰富。
