Luchkina Elena, Waxman Sandra
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States Of America.
Institute of Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States Of America.
PLoS One. 2025 Apr 23;20(4):e0321775. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0321775. eCollection 2025.
Human language permits us to call to mind representations of objects, events, and ideas that we cannot witness directly, enabling us to learn about the world far beyond our immediate surroundings. When and how does this capacity emerge? To address this question, we evaluated infants at 12 and 15 months, asking whether they establish a representation of a novel noun's meaning in the absence of any visible referents, and use this representation to identify a candidate referent when it later becomes available. During training, infants (67 12-month-olds; 67 15-month-olds) were primed with words and images of objects from a particular semantic neighborhood (e.g., fruits) and were also introduced to a novel noun (e.g., "a modi"), used to name a hidden object. During test, infants heard that noun again, this time with two unfamiliar objects present-one from the primed neighborhood (e.g., a dragon fruit) and the other from an unrelated semantic neighborhood (e.g., an ottoman). If infants can represent something about the meaning of the novel noun in the absence of a visible referent and then use such a representation when a candidate referent appears, then at test, they should prefer the object from the primed semantic neighborhood. At 15 months, infants succeeded. In contrast, 12-month-olds did not succeed on this task even after a full week of vocabulary training designed to boost the effect of priming. It is possible then that 12-month-olds' representations of novel nouns' meaning are not yet sufficiently rich (if any at all) to guide their choice of referent when one does appear. Together, these findings suggest that the capacity to establish a representation of a novel noun's meaning in the absence of any visible referent and use this representation later to identify a candidate referent object emerges between 12 and 15 months.
人类语言使我们能够唤起对无法直接目睹的物体、事件和概念的表征，从而使我们能够了解远超出我们直接周围环境的世界。这种能力何时以及如何出现？为了解决这个问题，我们对12个月和15个月大的婴儿进行了评估，询问他们在没有任何可见参照物的情况下是否能建立一个新名词意义的表征，并在之后有候选参照物出现时使用这个表征来识别它。在训练过程中，婴儿（67名12个月大的婴儿；67名15个月大的婴儿）接触了来自特定语义范畴（如水果）的物体的单词和图像，还被介绍了一个新名词（如“a modi”），用于命名一个隐藏的物体。在测试过程中，婴儿再次听到那个名词，这次有两个不熟悉的物体出现——一个来自已接触范畴（如火龙果），另一个来自不相关的语义范畴（如奥斯曼凳）。如果婴儿在没有可见参照物的情况下能够表征新名词的某些意义，然后在候选参照物出现时使用这样的表征，那么在测试中，他们应该更喜欢来自已接触语义范畴的物体。15个月大的婴儿成功了。相比之下，12个月大的婴儿即使经过了为期一周旨在增强启动效应的词汇训练，在这项任务上也没有成功。那么有可能12个月大的婴儿对新名词意义的表征还不够丰富（如果有的话），不足以在有参照物出现时指导他们选择参照物。总之，这些发现表明，在没有任何可见参照物的情况下建立新名词意义的表征，并在之后使用这个表征来识别候选参照物物体的能力在12个月至15个月之间出现。
