2-046 - Exploring the nature of children's cross-situational word learning

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Recent evidence suggests that under at least some circumstances, children can use cross-situational information to identify the referents of novel nouns (Smith & Yu, 2008) and novel verbs (Scott & Fisher, 2012). Yet considerable questions remain regarding both the conditions under which children can exploit cross-situational information in word learning and the nature of the mechanism that supports this process. The presentations in this symposium used a diverse set of methodologies to explore these issues.

The first presentation investigated whether 2.5-year-old children could use cross-situational information to learn novel nouns and novel verbs concurrently when both occurred in the same sentence, while also exploring the role of syntactic cues in cross-situational learning. The second presentation asked whether a social cue, eye gaze, might facilitate 2-year-olds’ cross-situational learning, enabling them to use cross-situational information to identify the referents of novel verbs when they would otherwise be unable to do so. The third presentation used a combination of behavioral data and corpus analyses to examine a different type of social support for children’s word learning: whether parents tailor the ambiguity and complexity of naming events to their children’s developmental level. Finally, the fourth presentation used both behavioral data and computational modeling to explore the extent to which the ambiguity of naming events impacts 2-year-olds’ cross-situational noun learning.

Together, these presentations shed new light on the nature and extent of children’s cross-situational word learning, as well as the cues and input that facilitate this learning.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chairs

• John Bunce, University of California, Merced

• Rose Scott, University of California Merced

Individual Presentations

• All Together Now: Learning Nouns and Verbs via Cross-situational Statistics - Presenting Author: Stanka A Fitneva, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

• Looking where the action is: 2-year-olds follow gaze to use cross-situational information in verb learning - Presenting Author: John Bunce, University of California, Merced; Rose Scott, University of California Merced

• Language input is calibrated to children’s developmental level - Presenting Author: Dan Yurovsky, University of Chicago; Gabriel Doyle, Stanford University; Michael Frank, Stanford University; Chen Yu, Indiana University; Linda Smith, Indiana University

• What's the Data for Toddlers' Word Learning? Implications for the Mechanisms of Cross-Situational Learning - Presenting Author: Sumarga Suanda, Indiana University / Psychological & Brain Sciences; Linda Smith, Indiana University; Chen Yu, Indiana University