A Sensory-Motor Solution to Early Word-Referent Learning

Abstract

Many theories of word learning begin with the uncertainty inherent to learning a word from its co-occurrence with a visual scene. However, the relevant visual scene for infant word learning is neither from the adult theorist’s view nor the mature partner’s view, but is rather from the learner’s personal view. Here, the authors review recent studies on 18-month-old infants playing with their parents in a free-flowing interaction. Frame-by-frame analyses of the head camera images at and around naming moments were conducted to determine the visual properties at input that were associated with learning. The main contribution is that toddlers, through their own actions, often create a personal view that consists of one dominating object. Parents often (but not always) name objects during these optimal sensory moments, and when they do, toddlers learn the object name. The results are discussed with respect to early word learning, embodied attention, and robotics.