Laboratory for Developmental Studies, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, United States.
Cogn Psychol. 2024 Sep;153:101681. doi: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2024.101681. Epub 2024 Aug 3.
The words that children learn change over time in predictable ways. The first words that infants acquire are generally ones that are both frequent and highly imageable. Older infants also learn words that are more abstract and some that are less common. It is unclear whether this pattern is attributable to maturational factors (i.e., younger children lack sufficiently developed cognitive faculties needed to learn abstract words) or linguistic factors (i.e., younger children lack sufficient knowledge of their language to use grammatical or contextual cues needed to figure out the meaning of more abstract words). The present study explores this question by comparing vocabulary acquisition in 53 preschool-aged children (M = 51 months, range = 30-76 months) who were adopted from China and Eastern Europe after two and half years of age and 53 vocabulary-matched infant controls born and raised in English speaking families in North America (M = 24 months, range = 16-33 months). Vocabulary was assessed using the MB-CDI Words and Sentences form, word frequency was estimated from the CHILDES database, and imageability was measured using adult ratings of how easily words could be pictured mentally. Both groups were more likely to know words that were both highly frequent and imageable (resulting in an over-additive interaction). Knowledge of a word was also independently affected by the syntactic category that it belongs to. Adopted preschoolers' vocabulary was slightly less affected by imageability. These findings were replicated in a comparison with a larger sample of vocabulary-matched controls drawn from the MB-CDI norming study (M = 22 months, range = 16-30 months; 33 girls). These results suggest that the patterns of acquisition in children's early vocabulary are primarily driven by the accrual of linguistic knowledge, but that vocabulary may also be affected by differences in early life experiences or conceptual knowledge.
儿童学习的词汇会随着时间的推移以可预测的方式发生变化。婴儿习得的第一个词汇通常是既频繁又形象化的词汇。较大的婴儿也会学习更抽象和一些不太常见的词汇。目前尚不清楚这种模式是归因于成熟因素（即年幼的孩子缺乏足够发达的认知能力来学习抽象词汇）还是语言因素（即年幼的孩子缺乏足够的语言知识来使用语法或上下文线索来理解更抽象词汇的含义）。本研究通过比较 53 名从中国和东欧被收养的 53 名词汇匹配的婴儿对照组的词汇习得情况，来探讨这个问题，这些孩子在 2 岁半后被收养，年龄在 30-76 个月之间；53 名词汇匹配的婴儿对照组出生并成长于北美讲英语的家庭中，年龄在 24 个月之间，范围为 16-33 个月。词汇量使用 MB-CDI 单词和句子表进行评估，单词频率从 CHILDES 数据库中估算，图像可识别性使用成人对单词在心理上可多容易地进行图像化的评分进行测量。两个组都更有可能知道既高频又形象化的词汇（产生了过度附加的相互作用）。对单词的了解也独立于它所属的语法类别。被收养的学龄前儿童的词汇量受图像可识别性的影响略小。这些发现与从 MB-CDI 定标研究中抽取的词汇匹配对照组的更大样本进行比较时得到了复制（M=22 个月，范围 16-30 个月；33 名女孩）。这些结果表明，儿童早期词汇习得的模式主要是由语言知识的积累驱动的，但词汇也可能受到早期生活经历或概念知识差异的影响。
