word learning

Question 1

learning

Answer 1

morphology can give a clue to meaning - can use existing knowledge to work out
-vocab knowledge strong predictor of later outcome
vocab + reading comprehension are best predictors of school outcomes.

Question 2

early phases

Answer 2

• Pre-linguistic - 9 months - crying, going
• holophrastic - 1 year - one word = many meanings
• telegraphic - 18-24 - 2/3 word
• stage 2 grammar - 2-3yr - plurals, overgeneralisation
• adult like speech - 5-6 yr

Question 3

when learning new words need to discover:

Answer 3

• relevant linguistic units
• relevant conceptual units
• establish mapping between them

Question 4

skinner - conditioning

Answer 4

children learn solely from inout

• when corrected - what do parents focus on
• parents reinforce semantic correction
• other times correct semantic but use child language
• limits of input
• have to wait till child is read
• pushing child can be good but no point if they arent reads

Question 5

Chomsky - LAD

Answer 5

grammar + syntax too complex - born with universal grammar/syntax

sorts words into syntactic categories

-need to consider extent cognitive processes are language specific

6 months old:

• mommy - looks at mum video
• daddy - looks at dad vid
• understanding always proceeds production
• not when presented unfamiliar person

Question 6

comprehension before production

Answer 6

golinkoff - 17m old looks at correct picture - 1 word stage can understand wod order

Question 7

vocabulary spurt

Answer 7

occurs once reach 50 words
increasing memory + cog capacities
vocab size + when children start 2 word utterances is strongly related
66% of vocab is object words

Question 8

guessing the meaning - gagagai

Answer 8

give the unknown name to something that doesnt already have a name

whole object constraint

Question 9

nouns > verbs

Answer 9

verbs occur in lots of concepts + happen under time

before can understand a verb, have to know about the nouns involved

Question 10

over/under extensions

Answer 10

over - bird = birds

under - duck = only toy duck in bath

Question 11

whole object constraint

Answer 11

word refers to whole objects rather than parts of objcts

adults clear when not referring to whole
-may reflect more general bias to divide the world into discrete objects

processing constraint - innate bias to group objects and perceive them as one thing

Question 12

mutual exclusivity bias

Answer 12

each object can only have more than one label

shape - objects of same shape have same name

taxonomic constraint - assume similar category objects have same label
-as form new words - new categories - new category = new words

syntactic bootstrapping - good at perceiving if a word is verb/noun based on other cues

Question 13

problems with constraints on learning

Answer 13

not necessity
could make llearning harder
where do they come from
are they only at certain points of development?

Question 14

explanations of constraints

Answer 14

associative/attentional learning

• perceptual cues co-occur in predictable way
• attention selective for those cues
• shape bias

lanuage constraints emerge from general learning biases

probability theory - statistical learning - domain general

Question 15

fast mapping - Carey + Bartlett 1978

Answer 15

new word connected with concept after only brief encounter

• use context to make guess about maning
• novel object quickle ass by 15-2 year olds - remember new term when tested later

-retention 1 week later = fast mapping of novel name to novel object

Question 16

Horst

Answer 16

24m olds - good intiial learning

• but couldnt do it 5 mins later when presented with other novel objects
• not exactly learning the new object/word mapping
• good way to test if theyve learnt what the word represents or just he word in the context

Question 17

fast mapping

Answer 17

sleep crucial for integrating new words - role of memory

Gathercole - speed at which 4 year olds can recall non words correlated with current vocab + growth

Question 18

pragmatic and social factors

Answer 18

motherese (CDS) - helps stand out in speech

social factors - taking turns

parents establish shared attention

relies on memory capacity - infantile amnesia

related to development of concepts

private speech - later inner speech

Question 19

how do we add new words to the lexicon?

Answer 19

the cohort model - Marslen -Wilson
-as the speech unfolds the words accessed become more limited till found uniqueness point

novel word learning - need to hear more word to recognise - UP has shifted

Question 20

Dunmay 2007 - test

Answer 20

look for lexical competition effects straight agyer learning and after delay
-whether processing of existing point is lower - slows consolidation and integrated - engaging lexical competition

• new effects absent immediately but present after sleep
• findings extended to children

Question 21

how do we integrate these new words?

Answer 21

2 seperate compoents:
-hippocampus - plasticity - fast learning of new word

-neocortex - stability - lt storage of lexical info

Question 22

why not integrate new info straight away?

Answer 22

computational property of the brain

• advantages to representing in distributed + overlapping form
• disadvantage - catastrophic interference

Question 23

would we expect the same mechanism early in development?

Answer 23

maybe - delayed improvements in recognition for new words

maybe not

• different sleep
• less existing knowledge/competition
• heightened plasticity

SIMILAR IN CHILDREN

• AM + PM group
• word learning greater in PM group when sleep
• AM group - when had slept the next day, similar level to PM group