Can English-learning toddlers acquire and generalize a novel spatial word?
Journal Article (Journal Article)
English-learning toddlers of 21 and 22 months were taught a novel spatial word for four actions resulting in a tight-fit spatial relation, a relation that is lexically marked in Korean but not English (Choi & Bowerman, 1991). Toddlers in a control condition viewed the same tight-fit action events without the novel word. Toddlers' comprehension of the novel word was tested in a preferential-looking paradigm. Across four videotaped pairs of action events, a tight-fit event was paired with a loose-fit event. Only toddlers who were taught the novel spatial word looked significantly longer at the tight-fit events during the test trials that presented the novel word than during control trials that presented neutral linguistic stimuli. The results indicate that toddlers can map and generalize a novel word onto actions resulting in a tight-fit relation, given limited experience with the novel word. The results provide insight into how young word learners begin to form language-specific semantic spatial categories. Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Casasola, M; Wilbourn, MP; Yang, S
Published Date
- December 1, 2006
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 26 / 2
Start / End Page
- 187 - 205
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1740-2344
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0142-7237
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1177/0142723706060746
Citation Source
- Scopus