Abstract
We propose a new model-based approach linking word learning to the age of acquisition (AoA) of words; a new computational tool for understanding the relationships among word learning processes, psychological attributes, and word AoAs as measures of vocabulary growth. The computational model developed describes the distinct statistical relationships between three theoretical factors underpinning word learning and AoA distributions. Simply put, this model formulates how different learning processes, characterized by change in learning rate over time and/or by the number of exposures required to acquire a word, likely result in different AoA distributions depending on word type. We tested the model in three respects. The first analysis showed that the proposed model accounts for empirical AoA distributions better than a standard alternative. The second analysis demonstrated that the estimated learning parameters well predicted the psychological attributes, such as frequency and imageability, of words. The third analysis illustrated that the developmental trend predicted by our estimated learning parameters was consistent with relevant findings in the developmental literature on word learning in children. We further discuss the theoretical implications of our model-based approach.
Highlights
What characterizes patterns of vocabulary growth? In the first year of life, children begin to comprehend and produce words
The results demonstrate that the majority of age of acquisition (AoA) distributions for the 652 words analyzed were better described by the proposed learning models than by the logistic model
Predictions about potential factors governing the learning of each word as estimated from AoA distributions were evaluated against empirical data
Summary
What characterizes patterns of vocabulary growth? In the first year of life, children begin to comprehend and produce words. Between 18 months and 18 years of age, children/adolescents have been estimated to acquire approximately ten new words per day, or one new word every 90 minutes that the child is awake [2] What processes underlie this efficient learning pattern? More recent accounts conceptualize the process in terms of a single or set of self-accelerating processes [6] This view acknowledges the fact that the age of acquisition (AoA) of any word will depend on a variety of factors: word frequency, word length, phonological similarity, semantic similarity, lexical density, familiarity, imageability, and so forth. One way to take into account all of these various factors is to consider vocabulary growth from a population perspective – a population of children learning a set of words with a mixture of properties
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