Word learning from videos: more evidence from 2‐year‐olds

Abstract

AbstractYoung children are frequently exposed to examples of screen media like videos. The current studies asked whether videos would support word learning and whether word learning from videos might resemble word learning from a live speaker. In Study 1, 2‐year‐olds saw a video of a target image being labelled with a novel word and were later asked to point to and name the image and its live counterpart. Study 2 was similar except that 2‐year‐olds were asked to solve video and live versions of the disambiguation task (i.e. to point to and name a distracter image and its live counterpart). Results showed that 2‐year‐olds learned and disambiguated words from video (as measured by both pointing and naming) and that learning was similar on the video and live versions of each task. These results have important implications for theories of word learning and for the viability of video as a source for young children's word learning. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.