Cross-situational Word Learning Research Articles

Better early than late: the temporal dynamics of pointing cues during cross-situational word learning

Abstract Learning the meaning of a word is a difficult task due to the variety of possible referents present in the environment. Visual cues such as gestures frequently accompany speech and have the potential to reduce referential uncertainty and promote learning, but the dynamics of pointing cues and speech integration are not yet known. If word learning is influenced by when, as well as whether, a learner is directed correctly to a target, then this would suggest temporal integration of visual and speech information can affect the strength of association of word–referent mappings. Across two pre-registered studies, we tested the conditions under which pointing cues promote learning. In a cross-situational word learning paradigm, we showed that the benefit of a pointing cue was greatest when the cue preceded the speech label, rather than following the label (Study 1). In an eye-tracking study (Study 2), the early cue advantage was due to participants’ attention being directed to the referent during label utterance, and this advantage was apparent even at initial exposures of word–referent pairs. Pointing cues promote time-coupled integration of visual and auditory information that aids encoding of word–referent pairs, demonstrating the cognitive benefits of pointing cues occurring prior to speech.

Speaker variability, but not bilingualism, influences cross-situational word learning.

When learning new words, listeners must contend with multiple sources of ambiguity and variability. Research has revealed that learners can resolve referential ambiguity by tracking co-occurrence statistics between words and their referents across multiple exposures over time-a process termed cross-situational word learning (XSWL). However, the degree to which variability in the input, such as input from multiple speakers, and variability in learner experience, such as bilingual language experience, modulate XSWL remains unclear. In this study, we examined the effects of speaker variability in XSWL performance in monolingual adults and bilingual adults with a range of second language backgrounds and language acquisition histories. Results revealed above-chance word learning in both the single and the multiple-speaker conditions across language groups. An advantage for word learning was observed in the single-speaker condition, but the effects of bilingual language experience were null. This research adds to the limited body of work dedicated to extending theories of statistical learning to account for variations in both input and learner characteristics as well as their interactions.

Probing the role of multilingualism and working memory in cross-situational word learning.

Cross-situational word learning (CSWL), the ability to resolve word-referent ambiguity across encounters, is a powerful mechanism found in infants, children, and adults. Yet, we know little about what predicts individual differences in CSWL, especially when learning different mapping structures, such as when referents have a single name (1:1 mapping structure) or two names (2:1 mapping structure). Here, we investigated how multilingual experience and working memory skills (visuo-spatial and phonological) contributed to CSWL of 1:1 and 2:1 structures. Monolingual (n = 78) and multilingual (n = 106) adults completed CSWL tasks of 1:1 and 2:1 structures, a symmetry span task, and a listening span task. Results from path models showed that multilingualism predicted visuo-spatial working memory but not CSWL. Additionally, phonological working memory predicted accuracy on CSWL of 1:1 structure, but not 2:1 structure. Findings highlight the importance of considering language experience and cognitive skills together to better understand the factors that promote individual CSWL skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for Probing the Role of Multilingualism and Working Memory in Cross-Situational Word Learning

Supplemental Material for Probing the Role of Multilingualism and Working Memory in Cross-Situational Word Learning

Children's subjective uncertainty-driven sampling behaviour.

Are children and adults sensitive to gaps in their knowledge, and do they actively elicit information to resolve such knowledge gaps? In a cross-situational word learning task, we asked 5-year-olds, 6- to 9-year-olds and adults to estimate their knowledge of newly learned word-object associations. We then examined whether participants preferentially sampled objects they reported not knowing the label in order to hear their labels again. We also examined whether such uncertainty-driven sampling behaviour led to improved learning. We found that all age groups were sensitive to gaps in their knowledge of the word-object associations, i.e. were more likely to say they had correctly indicated the label of an object when they were correct, relative to when they were incorrect. Furthermore, 6- to 9-year-olds and adults-but not 5-year-olds-were more likely to sample objects whose labels they reported not knowing. In other words, older children and adults displayed sampling behaviour directed at reducing knowledge gaps and uncertainty, while younger children did not. However, participants who displayed more uncertainty-driven sampling behaviour were not more accurate at test. Our findings underscore the role of uncertainty in driving 6- to 9-year-olds' and adults' sampling behaviour and speak to the mechanisms underlying previously reported performance boosts in active learning.

The effects of speaker and exemplar variability in children's cross-situational word learning.

Cross-situational word learning (XSWL) - children's ability to learn words by tracking co-occurrence statistics of words and their referents over time - has been identified as a fundamental mechanism underlying lexical learning. However, it is unknown whether children can acquire new words when faced with variable input in XSWL paradigms, such as varying object exemplars and variable speakers. In the present study, we examine the separate and combined effects of exemplar and speaker variability on XSWL in typically developing English-speaking monolingual children. Results revealed that variability in speakers and exemplars did not facilitate or hinder XSWL performance. However, input that varied in both speakers and exemplars simultaneously did hinder children's word learning. Results from this work suggest that XSWL mechanisms may support categorization and generalization beyond word-object associations, but that accommodating multiple forms of variable input may incur costs. Overall, this research provides new theoretical insights into how fundamental mechanisms of word learning scale to more complex and naturalistic forms of input.

Cross-Situational Word Learning in Children and Adults: The Case of Lexical Overlap

ABSTRACT Cross-situational word learning, the ability to decipher word-referent links over multiple ambiguous learning events, has been documented across development and proposed to be key to vocabulary acquisition. However, this work has largely focused on learning from one-to-one structure, where each referent is consistently linked with a single label. In contrast, learners can encounter lexical overlap, such as when learning synonyms, which requires learning from structure that presents multiple labels linked with the same thing (many-to-one structure). Are children capable of cross-situational word learning from encounters presenting consistent lexical overlap? How does this ability change with age? Here, we provide a first test of cross-situational word learning from input presenting lexical overlap across age by testing 4- to 7-year-old children (N = 190) and adults (N = 80) on their ability to learn from one-to-one or two-to-one structure. Results showed that adults (Experiment 1) were successful at learning from both types of structure, with an advantage for one-to-one structure. Children (Experiment 2) performed less well than adults overall, and failed to learn from two-to-one structure. With extended training (Experiment 3), older children were successful at learning from two-to-one structure while younger children were not. These results provide the first evidence that cross-situational word learning from one-to-one and two-to-one structure improves over age.

Reduced Implicit but not Explicit Knowledge of Cross-Situational Statistical Learning in Developmental Dyslexia.

Although statistical learning (SL) has been studied extensively in developmental dyslexia (DD), less attention has been paid to other fundamental challenges in language acquisition, such as cross-situational word learning. Such investigation is important for determining whether and how SL processes are affected in DD at the word level. In this study, typically developed (TD) adults and young adults with DD were exposed to a set of trials that contained multiple spoken words and multiple pictures of individual objects, with no information about word-referent correspondences provided within a trial. Nonetheless, cross-trial statistical relations could be exploited to learn word-referent mappings. The degree of within-trial reference uncertainty and the novelty of to-be-learned objects (novel or familiar) were varied under different learning conditions. The results show that across all conditions, young adults with DD were significantly impaired in their ability to exploit cross-trial regularities in co-occurring visual-auditory streams to discover word-referent mappings. Observed impairments were most pronounced when within-trial reference uncertainty was the highest. Subjective measures of knowledge awareness revealed greater development of implicit but not explicit knowledge in the TD group than in the DD group. Together, these findings suggest that the SL deficit in DD affects fundamental language learning challenges at the word level and points to greater reliance on explicit processes due to impaired implicit associative learning among individuals with DD. Such a deficit is likely to influence spoken language acquisition, and in turn affect literacy skills, in people with DD.

Four- and six-year-old children track a single meaning with both familiar and unfamiliar referents when the referent is clear: More evidence for propose-but-verify.

In word learning, learners need to identify the referent of words by leveraging the fact that the same word may co-occur with different sets of objects. This raises the question, what do children remember from "in the moment" that they can use for cross-situational learning? Furthermore, do children represent pictures of familiar animals versus drawings of non-existent novel objects as potential referents differently? This study examined these questions by creating learning scenarios with only two potential referents, requiring the least amount of memory to represent all co-present objects. Across three experiments (n>250) with 4- and 6-year-old children, children reliably selected the intended referent from learning at test, though the learning of novel objects was better than familiar objects. When asked for a co-present object, children of all ages in the study performed at chance in all of the conditions. We discuss the developmental differences in cross-situational word learning capabilities with regard to representing different stimuli as potential referents. Importantly, all children used a propose-but-verify procedure for learning novel words even in the simplest of the learning scenarios given repeated exposure.

Speech Segmentation and Cross-Situational Word Learning in Parallel.

Language learners track conditional probabilities to find words in continuous speech and to map words and objects across ambiguous contexts. It remains unclear, however, whether learners can leverage the structure of the linguistic input to do both tasks at the same time. To explore this question, we combined speech segmentation and cross-situational word learning into a single task. In Experiment 1, when adults (N = 60) simultaneously segmented continuous speech and mapped the newly segmented words to objects, they demonstrated better performance than when either task was performed alone. However, when the speech stream had conflicting statistics, participants were able to correctly map words to objects, but were at chance level on speech segmentation. In Experiment 2, we used a more sensitive speech segmentation measure to find that adults (N = 35), exposed to the same conflicting speech stream, correctly identified non-words as such, but were still unable to discriminate between words and part-words. Again, mapping was above chance. Our study suggests that learners can track multiple sources of statistical information to find and map words to objects in noisy environments. It also prompts questions on how to effectively measure the knowledge arising from these learning experiences.

The role of bilingualism in paired-associate and cross-situational word learning.

In adulthood, novel words are commonly encountered in the context of sequential language learning, and to a lesser extent, when learning a new word in one's native language. Paired-associate (PAL) and cross-situational word learning (CSWL) paradigms have been studied separately, under distinct theoretical umbrellas, limiting the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the learning process in each. We tested 126 monolinguals and 111 bilinguals on PAL and CSWL, manipulating familiarity and measuring verbal working memory. Results revealed highly similar learning performance across groups, both demonstrating better performance in PAL than in CSWL, similar sensitivity to familiarity, and similar reliance on phonological working memory. We observed a trend such that bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in PAL but not in CSWL, but this trend was weak. Findings indicate limited effects of bilingualism on word learning in adulthood and suggest highly similar word learning mechanisms in learners with different linguistic experiences.

What have we learned from 15 years of research on cross-situational word learning? A focused review.

In 2007 and 2008, Yu and Smith published their seminal studies on cross-situational word learning (CSWL) in adults and infants, showing that word-object-mappings can be acquired from distributed statistics despite in-the-moment uncertainty. Since then, the CSWL paradigm has been used extensively to better understand (statistical) word learning in different language learners and under different learning conditions. The goal of this review is to provide an entry-level overview of findings and themes that have emerged in 15 years of research on CSWL across three topic areas (mechanisms of CSWL, CSWL across different learner and task characteristics) and to highlight the questions that remain to be answered.

Children’s affective involvement in early word learning

The current study set out to examine the underlying physiological mechanisms of and the emotional response associated with word learning success in young 3-year-old predominantly white children. In particular, we examined whether children’s physiological arousal following a word learning task predicts their word learning success and whether successful learning in turn predicts children’s subsequent positive emotions. We presented children (n = 50) with a cross-situational word learning task and measured their pupillary arousal following completion of the task, as well as changes to their upper body posture following completion of the task, as indices of children’s emotions following task completion. Children who showed greater physiological arousal following the novel word recognition task (n = 40) showed improved subsequent word recognition performance. We found that children showed more elevated posture after completing a familiar word learning task compared to completing a novel word learning task (n = 33) but results on children’s individual learning success and postural elevation were mixed. We discuss the findings with regards to children’s affective involvement in word learning.

Understanding preschoolers' word learning success in different scenarios: disambiguation meets statistical learning and eBook reading.

Children's ability to learn new words during their preschool years is crucial for further academic success. Previous research suggests that children rely on different learning mechanisms to acquire new words depending on the available context and linguistic information. To date, there is limited research integrating different paradigms to provide a cohesive view of the mechanisms and processes involved in preschool children's word learning. We presented 4 year-old children (n = 47) with one of three different novel word-learning scenarios to test their ability to connect novel words to their correspondent referents without explicit instruction to do so. The scenarios were tested with three exposure conditions of different nature: (i) mutual exclusivity-target novel word-referent pair presented with a familiar referent, prompting fast-mapping via disambiguation, (ii) cross-situational-target novel word-referent pair presented next to an unfamiliar referent prompting statistically tracking the target pairs across trials, and (iii) eBook - target word-referent pairs presented within an audio-visual electronic storybook (eBook), prompting inferring meaning incidentally. Results show children succeed at learning the new words above chance in all three scenarios, with higher performance in eBook and mutual exclusivity than in cross-situational word learning. This illustrates children's astounding ability to learn while coping with uncertainty and varying degrees of ambiguity, which are common in real-world situations. Findings extend our understanding of how preschoolers learn new words more or less successfully depending on specific word learning scenarios, which should be taken into account when working on vocabulary development for school readiness in the preschool years.

Paired-associate versus cross-situational: How do verbal working memory and word familiarity affect word learning?

Word learning is one of the first steps into language, and vocabulary knowledge predicts reading, speaking, and writing ability. There are several pathways to word learning and little is known about how they differ. Previous research has investigated paired-associate (PAL) and cross-situational word learning (CSWL) separately, limiting the understanding of how the learning process compares across the two. In PAL, the roles of word familiarity and working memory have been thoroughly examined, but these same factors have received very little attention in CSWL. We randomly assigned 126 monolingual adults to PAL or CSWL. In each task, names of 12 novel objects were learned (six familiar words, six unfamiliar words). Logistic mixed-effects models examined whether word-learning paradigm, word type and working memory (measured with a backward digit-span task) predicted learning. Results suggest better learning performance in PAL and on familiar words. Working memory predicted word learning across paradigms, but no interactions were found between any of the predictors. This suggests that PAL is easier than CSWL, likely because of reduced ambiguity between the word and the referent, but that learning across both paradigms is equally enhanced by word familiarity, and similarly supported by working memory.

Implicit cross-situational word learning in children with and without developmental language disorder and its relation to lexical-semantic knowledge

IntroductionResearch indicates that statistical learning plays a role in word learning by enabling the learner to track the co-occurrences between words and their visual referents, a process that is named cross-situational word learning. Word learning is problematic for children with developmental language disorder (DLD), and a deficit in statistical learning has been suggested to contribute to the language difficulties in these children. Therefore, we investigate whether children with DLD have more difficulty than TD children with learning novel word–referent pairs based on cross-situational statistics in an implicit task, and whether this ability is related to their lexical-semantic skills. Moreover, we look at the role of variability of the learning environment.MethodsIn our implicit cross-situational word learning task, each trial in the exposure phase was in itself ambiguous: two pictures of unknown objects were shown at the same time and two novel words were played consecutively, without indicating which word referred to which object. However, as every word occurred with its correct referent consistently, the children could learn the word–referent pairs across trials. The children were not explicitly instructed to learn the names of new objects. As an on-line measure of learning, eye-movements were recorded during the exposure phase. After exposure, word–referent knowledge was also tested using multiple choice questions. Several measures of lexical-semantic knowledge were administered to the children with DLD, as well as tasks measuring non-verbal intelligence and phonological processing. Contextual variability (the number of different distractors with which a particular word–referent pair occurs across trials) was manipulated between subjects by constructing two types of exposure conditions: low contextual diversity vs. high contextual diversity.ResultsBoth groups of children performed significantly above chance level on the test phase, but the TD children significantly outperformed the children with DLD. We found no significant effect of contextual diversity. The eye-tracking data revealed some evidence of on-line learning, but no differences between groups. Finally, the regression analyses did not reveal any significant predictors of off-line or on-line cross-situational word learning ability.DiscussionOur results indicate that although children with DLD are able to learn word-referent pairs in an implicit task, they have more difficulty than TD children. Possibly they need more input to achieve the same level.

The effects of bilingualism on children’s cross-situational word learning under different variability conditions

In the current study, we examined the separate and combined effects of exemplar and speaker variability on monolingual and bilingual children’s cross-situational word learning performance. Results revealed that children’s word learning performance did not differ when the input varied in a single dimension (i.e., exemplars or speakers) compared with a condition with no variability independent of their linguistic background. However, when performance in conditions that varied in a single dimension (i.e., exemplars or speakers) was compared with a condition that varied in multiple dimensions (i.e., exemplars and speakers), bilingual word learning advantages were observed; bilinguals were more likely to learn word–referent associations than monolinguals. Together, results suggest that children can learn and generalize word–referent associations from input that varies in exemplars and speakers and that bilingualism may bolster learning under conditions of increased input variability.

Investigating Orthographic Versus Auditory Cross‐Situational Word Learning With Online and Laboratory‐Based Testing

AbstractResearch has shown that novel words can be learned through the mechanism of statistical or cross‐situational word learning (CSWL). So far, CSWL studies using adult populations have focused on the presentation of spoken words. However, words can also be learned through their written form. This study compared auditory and orthographic presentations of novel words with different degrees of phonological overlap using CSWL in a laboratory‐based and an online‐based approach. In our analyses, we first compared accuracy across modalities, with our findings showing more accurate recognition performance for CSWL when novel words were presented through their written forms (orthographic condition) rather than through their spoken forms (auditory condition). Bayesian modeling suggested that accuracy for the orthographic condition was higher in the laboratory compared to online, whereas performance in the auditory condition was similar across both experiments. We discuss the implications of our findings for presentation modality and the benefits of our online testing protocol for future research.

Explaining L2 Lexical Learning in Multiple Scenarios: Cross-Situational Word Learning in L1 Mandarin L2 English Speakers.

Adults commonly struggle with perceiving and recognizing the sounds and words of a second language (L2), especially when the L2 sounds do not have a counterpart in the learner's first language (L1). We examined how L1 Mandarin L2 English speakers learned pseudo English words within a cross-situational word learning (CSWL) task previously presented to monolingual English and bilingual Mandarin-English speakers. CSWL is ambiguous because participants are not provided with direct mappings of words and object referents. Rather, learners discern word-object correspondences through tracking multiple co-occurrences across learning trials. The monolinguals and bilinguals tested in previous studies showed lower performance for pseudo words that formed vowel minimal pairs (e.g., /dit/-/dɪt/) than pseudo word which formed consonant minimal pairs (e.g., /bɔn/-/pɔn/) or non-minimal pairs which differed in all segments (e.g., /bɔn/-/dit/). In contrast, L1 Mandarin L2 English listeners struggled to learn all word pairs. We explain this seemingly contradicting finding by considering the multiplicity of acoustic cues in the stimuli presented to all participant groups. Stimuli were produced in infant-directed-speech (IDS) in order to compare performance by children and adults and because previous research had shown that IDS enhances L1 and L2 acquisition. We propose that the suprasegmental pitch variation in the vowels typical of IDS stimuli might be perceived as lexical tone distinctions for tonal language speakers who cannot fully inhibit their L1 activation, resulting in high lexical competition and diminished learning during an ambiguous word learning task. Our results are in line with the Second Language Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model which proposes that fine-grained acoustic information from multiple sources and the ability to switch between language modes affects non-native phonetic and lexical development.

Cross-situational word learning of Cantonese Chinese.

In this study, we recruited 60 native Cantonese speakers to participate in a standard cross-situational word-learning task to explore the cross-situational learning effects of minimal word pairs in Cantonese Chinese. In the cross-situational word-learning task, four different types of word pairs were used: (1) a non-minimal word pair [N]; (2) a consonant minimal word pair [C]; (3) a rime minimal word pair [R]; and (4) a tone minimal word pair [T]. The results showed that the participants could learn the word-referent mapping for all word-pair types, but they performed better on the N and T types than on the other two (i.e., C and R). Together with other previous evidence, these findings suggest that Cantonese language learners can learn and encode those phonetic details while they learn the word-referent co-occurrence probabilities. The results also suggested that the tonal information seemed to be more important than the other phonological components in Cantonese Chinese word learning.