Poster #115 - The Referential Scope of 6- and 9-Month-Olds’ Object Labels

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Language, Communication

Integrative Statement

A longstanding question in the study of language development concerns the scope of infants’ earliest object labels: Do these expressions pick out individual objects (like proper names) or object categories (like count nouns) (for differing views, see Locke, 1690; Smith, 2000; Booth & Waxman, 2003)? Recent research indicates that 6- to 9-month-olds comprehend both words that are proper names in the adult lexicon (i.e., individual caregiver labels, specifically “Mommy” and “Daddy”) and words that are count nouns in the adult lexicon (e.g., body part and artifact category labels, such as “hand” and “ball”) (Bergelson & Swingley, 2014; Tincoff & Jusczyk, 1999). Yet the referential scope of these early-understood words is unclear: Do young infants understand (1) that labels for their caregivers have scope over individual objects and (2) that labels for body parts and artifacts have scope over object categories?

In Experiment 1, we used a looking-time task to probe 9-month-olds’ (N = 20) comprehension of the label for their mother (e.g., “Mommy”) and the term for ball (i.e., “ball”). The experiment had two blocks: a “Mommy” block and a “ball” block. In each block, infants received two types of trials. In the “Mommy” block, infants heard the label for their mother while seeing her (the target) paired with a dog (across-category trials) or an unfamiliar woman (within-category trials). If infants understood the label for their mother as an individual object term, we expected that they would increase their looking to her when hearing her label (compared to no-label baseline trials) on both across-category and within-category trials. In the “ball” block, infants heard the label “ball” while seeing their own toy ball (the target) paired with a cup (across-category trials) or an unfamiliar ball (within-category trials). If infants understood the label “ball” as an object category term, we expected that they would increase their looking to their ball (compared to no-label baseline trials) when hearing the label “ball” on across-category but not within-category trials. Our results supported both predictions (see Figure 1).

Experiment 2 was a modified replication of Experiment 1 with 6-month-olds (N= 20). The experiment was identical to Experiment 1, except that we replaced the “ball” block with a block assessing comprehension of the early-understood word “hand.” In the “hand” block, infants heard the label “hand” while seeing their own hand (the target) paired with a foot (across-category trials) or an unfamiliar hand (within-category trials). We replicated the pattern of results from Experiment 1 (see Figure 2).

The results support the claim that 6- to 9-month-olds understand both words for individual objects and words for object categories. To the extent that the experiments capture infants’ earliest lexical comprehension, the findings indicate that infants have the capacity to acquire both words with narrow referential scope and words with broad referential scope from the outset of lexical development. The findings thus present a challenge to theoretical views positing that word learning originates with the capacity to acquire only labels for individual objects or only labels for object categories.

Authors

• Jennifer Campbell, UBC
  Presenting Author

• Geoff Hall, University of British Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author