Gaze as a Window to the Process of Novel Adjective Mapping

Hanako Yoshida,Aakash Patel,Joseph Burling

doi:10.3390/languages4020033

Hanako Yoshida, Aakash Patel + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/languages4020033

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Abstract

This study evaluated two explanations for how learning of novel adjectives is facilitated when all the objects are from the same category (e.g., exemplar and testing objects are all CUPS) and the object category is a known to the children. One explanation (the category knowledge account) focuses on early knowledge of syntax–meaning correspondence, and another (the attentional account) focuses on the role of repeated perceptual properties. The first account presumes implicit understanding that all the objects belong to the same category, and the second account presumes only that redundant perceptual experiences minimize distraction from irrelevant features and thus guide children’s attention directly to the correct item. The present study tests the two accounts by documenting moment-to-moment attention allocation (e.g., looking at experimenter’s face, exemplar object, target object) during a novel adjective learning task with 50 3-year-olds. The results suggest that children’s attention was guided directly to the correct item during the adjective mapping and that such direct attention allocation to the correct item predicted children’s adjective mapping performance. Results are discussed in relation to their implication for children’s active looking as the determinant of process for mapping new words to their meanings.

Highlights

Relative to their acquisition of common nouns, children learn adjectives slowly (Gasser and Smith1998; Gentner 1982; Imai and Gentner 1997; Mintz and Gleitman 2002)
Experimenters present children with a novel object property attached to an exemplar item, label the property (“this is a stoof one”), and ask the children to extend that label to other instances (Figure 1)
Past accounts regarding the relation between object category and children’s extension of novel adjectives vary in terms of the potential underlying processes

Summary

Introduction

Relative to their acquisition of common nouns, children learn adjectives slowly (Gasser and Smith1998; Gentner 1982; Imai and Gentner 1997; Mintz and Gleitman 2002). This difficulty has prompted a number of studies that investigate supporting factors and the contexts in which adjectives can be successfully mapped to object properties In these studies, experimenters present children with a novel object property attached to an exemplar item (e.g., small bumps made out of glue bits covering a bottle), label the property (“this is a stoof one”), and ask the children to extend that label to other instances (Figure 1). Experimenters present children with a novel object property attached to an exemplar item (e.g., small bumps made out of glue bits covering a bottle), label the property (“this is a stoof one”), and ask the children to extend that label to other instances (Figure 1) Many of those studies documented the benefit of learning adjective-to-property mappings when the mappings are first made within the same basic-level category.

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