Swearengin Piper, Mihalicz Patrick, Marsh Leah, Baker Zoe, Perry Faith, Graham Susan A, Childers Jane B
Department of Psychology, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, USA.
Owerko Centre and the Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Br J Dev Psychol. 2025 Sep;43(3):730-741. doi: 10.1111/bjdp.12547. Epub 2025 Jan 24.
This study investigates whether the context in which a word is learnt affects noun and verb learning. There is mixed evidence in studies of noun learning, and no studies of background perceptual context in verb learning. Two-, three-, and four-year-olds (n = 162) saw a novel object moved in a novel way while hearing four novel words, either nouns or verbs. They were asked to generalize the word to a similar action or object shown in the same or different context. Results demonstrate that 2- and 3-year-olds were more accurate at test when learning nouns than verbs, demonstrating that verb learning is difficult; 4-year-olds were successful at learning both word types. For all ages, and both word types, context changes did not impact word learning. These results extend previous findings that context does not influence noun learning, while suggesting perceptual context may not play a major role in verb learning, which is a new finding.
本研究调查了学习单词时的情境是否会影响名词和动词的学习。在名词学习的研究中，证据不一，而在动词学习中，尚无关于背景感知情境的研究。2岁、3岁和4岁的儿童（n = 162）在听到四个新单词（名词或动词）的同时，看到一个新物体以一种新方式移动。他们被要求将该单词推广到在相同或不同情境中展示的类似动作或物体上。结果表明，2岁和3岁儿童在学习名词时测试的准确率高于学习动词时，这表明动词学习较难；4岁儿童在学习这两种词类时都很成功。对于所有年龄段以及两种词类，情境变化均未影响单词学习。这些结果扩展了先前关于情境不影响名词学习的发现，同时表明感知情境可能在动词学习中不发挥主要作用，这是一个新发现。
