Department of Psychology, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, USA.
Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA.
Infancy. 2025 Jan-Feb;30(1):e12632. doi: 10.1111/infa.12632.
Children's ability to identify relevant object features, such as shape, plays a key role in learning object names. However, successful attention to shape (shape bias) is dependent on other factors, including children's vocabulary size as well as opportunities for object exploration. The current study explored the combined impact of both vocabulary and object exploration on attention to shape and their cascading impact on retention of object labels. Here, 336 17-to-30-month-old children completed a Novel Noun Generalization (NNG) task and were tested on retention of exemplar name-object pairings. Children in a pre-familiarization condition physically explored objects before every trial; children in a no-familiarization condition did not. Vocabulary (via MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory) significantly predicted attention to shape, and higher rates of shape-match exploration yielded a stronger shape bias. However, object exploration did not impact NNG performance or retention, and children struggled to retain word-referent mappings. Though attention to shape is thought to support learning, exploratory analyses revealed that children's NNG performance did not predict retention. The results suggest that vocabulary significantly influences word learning processes but object exploration may not offer support. Future research should consider how task demands and other cognitive abilities impact word learning.
儿童识别相关物体特征（如形状）的能力在学习物体名称方面起着关键作用。然而，成功地关注形状（形状偏向）取决于其他因素，包括儿童的词汇量以及探索物体的机会。本研究探讨了词汇量和物体探索对形状注意的综合影响，以及它们对物体标签保留的级联影响。在这里，336 名 17 至 30 个月大的儿童完成了一项新名词泛化 (NNG) 任务，并接受了对示例名称-物体配对保留的测试。在预熟悉条件下，儿童在每次试验前都可以实际探索物体；在没有熟悉条件下，儿童则不可以。词汇量（通过麦克阿瑟-贝茨交际发展量表）显著预测了对形状的注意，并且更高的形状匹配探索率产生了更强的形状偏向。然而，物体探索并没有影响 NNG 的表现或保留，而且儿童难以保留词-指映射。虽然对形状的关注被认为有助于学习，但探索性分析表明，儿童的 NNG 表现并不能预测保留。结果表明，词汇量显著影响词汇学习过程，但物体探索可能无法提供支持。未来的研究应该考虑任务要求和其他认知能力如何影响词汇学习。
