Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
Cognition. 2021 Jul;212:104683. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104683. Epub 2021 Mar 26.
Classic theories emphasize the primacy of first-person sensory experience for learning meanings of words: to know what "see" means, one must be able to use the eyes to perceive. Contrary to this idea, blind adults and children acquire normative meanings of "visual" verbs, e.g., interpreting "see" and "look" to mean with the eyes for sighted agents. Here we ask the flip side of this question: how easily do sighted children acquire the meanings of "visual" verbs as they apply to blind agents? We asked sighted 4-, 6- and 9-year-olds to tell us what part of the body a blind or a sighted agent would use to "see", "look" (and other visual verbs, n = 5), vs. "listen", "smell" (and other non-visual verbs, n = 10). Even the youngest children consistently reported the correct body parts for sighted agents (eyes for "look", ears for "listen"). By contrast, there was striking developmental change in applying "visual" verbs to blind agents. Adults, 9- and 6-year-olds, either extended visual verbs to other modalities for blind agents (e.g., "seeing" with hands or a cane) or stated that the blind agent "cannot" "look" or "see". By contrast, 4-year-olds said that a blind agent would use her eyes to "see", "look", etc., even while explicitly acknowledging that the agent's "eyes don't work". Young children also endorsed "she is looking at the dax" descriptions of photographs where the blind agent had the object in her "line of sight", irrespective of whether she had physical contact with the object. This pattern held for leg-motion verbs ("walk", "run") applied to wheelchair users. The ability to modify verb modality for agents with disabilities undergoes developmental change between 4 and 6. Despite this, we find that 4-year-olds are sensitive to the semantic distinction between active ("look") and stative ("see"), even when applied to blind agents. These results challenge the primacy of first-person sensory experience and highlight the importance of linguistic input and social interaction in the acquisition of verb meaning.
要知道“看”是什么意思，就必须能够用眼去感知。与这一观点相反，盲人和正常儿童都获得了“视觉”动词的规范含义，例如，将“看见”和“看”解释为有视力的人用眼睛去看。在这里，我们提出了这个问题的另一面：视力正常的儿童在学习适用于盲人的“视觉”动词的含义时，有多容易？我们要求 4 岁、6 岁和 9 岁的视力正常的儿童告诉我们，盲人和有视力的人会用身体的哪个部位“看”、“看”（以及其他视觉动词，n=5），而不是“听”、“闻”（以及其他非视觉动词，n=10）。即使是最小的孩子也始终会用正确的身体部位来描述有视力的人（用眼睛“看”，用耳朵“听”）。相比之下，当将“视觉”动词应用于盲人时，会出现惊人的发展变化。成年人、9 岁和 6 岁的孩子要么将视觉动词扩展到盲人的其他模态（例如，用手或拐杖“看”），要么说盲人“不能”“看”或“看”。相比之下，4 岁的孩子会说盲人会用她的眼睛“看”、“看”等，即使他们明确承认盲人的“眼睛不起作用”。即使在明确承认该代理的“眼睛不起作用”的情况下，儿童也会认可“她正在看 dax”的照片描述，即盲人代理的“视线”中有该对象，而不论她是否与该对象有身体接触。这种模式适用于腿部运动动词（“走”、“跑”）适用于轮椅使用者。在 4 岁到 6 岁之间，对残疾代理人的动词模式进行修改的能力会发生发展变化。尽管如此，我们发现 4 岁的孩子对主动（“看”）和静态（“看”）动词之间的语义区别很敏感，即使适用于盲人。这些结果挑战了第一人称感官体验的首要性，并强调了语言输入和社会互动在动词意义习得中的重要性。
