The role of semantic similarity in verb learning events: Vocabulary-related changes across early development

Abstract

Verb meaning is challenging for children to learn across varied events. This study examined how the taxonomic semantic similarity of the nouns in novel verb learning events in a progressive alignment learning condition differed from the taxonomic dissimilarity of nouns in a dissimilar learning condition in supporting near (similar) and far (dissimilar) verb generalization to novel objects in an eye-tracking task. A total of 48 children in two age groups (23 girls; younger: 21–24 months, Mage = 22.1 months; older: 27–30 months: Mage = 28.3 months) who differed in taxonomic vocabulary size were tested. There were no group or learning condition differences in near generalization. The younger group demonstrated better far generalization of verbs learned with semantically dissimilar nouns. The older group demonstrated the opposite pattern, with better far generalization of verbs learned with semantically similar nouns in the progressive alignment condition. These patterns were associated with children’s in-category vocabulary knowledge more than other vocabulary measures, including verb vocabulary size. Taxonomic vocabulary knowledge differentially affects verb learning and generalization across development.