Noun Labels Research Articles

The development of picture naming: Differences between verbs and nouns

The development of picture naming was assessed in a cross-sectional study of 316 children in five age bands from 3;0–3;5 years to 5;0–5;5 years. The study examined naming accuracy for pictures depicting two types of actions (verbs) and nouns. Previous analyses suggested that verbs are different from nouns because of the inherent complexity of the lexical representations for verbs. Consequently, it has been argued that verb labels should be acquired later than noun labels. However, a review of research in both psycholinguistics and neuropsychology allowed us to predict that young children would not necessarily have more difficulty naming pictures of verbs than pictures of nouns. Our study confirmed that, at all age bands tested, only depictions of intransitive verbs produced more errors than those for nouns. A second study using video clips replicated the findings of the first study and ruled out the possibility that children's difficulty with intransitive verbs was due to difficulties in picture interpretation. We suggest that the results reflect the different underlying lexical representations for transitive and intransitive verbs.

The noun-category bias phenomenon in 3-year-olds: Taxonomic constraint or translation?

Preschool children exposed to a novel noun label (e.g., “dax”) for a standard picture (e.g., a dog) in a match-to-sample task are biased to match the standard with a picture based on taxonomic relations (e.g., another dog) rather than thematic relations (e.g., a dog bone). This phenomenon, called a noun-category bias, has been interpreted as a generalized constraint on word learning that predisposes children to interpret novel nouns in terms of category relations. This experiment tested the generality of this phenomenon across important variations in the match-to-sample task. It also examined an alternative interpretation of the phenomenon called the translation hypothesis, which suggests that the noun-category bias is mediated by the child's translation of the novel label into a familiar word. The data revealed: (a) that the phenomenon generalizes to a three-choice, match-to-sample procedure including taxonomic, thematic, and irrelevant choices; (b) that exposure to either a novel noun label during each choice trial, or to a labelling pretreatment game prior to the match-to-sample task is sufficient both to induce the noun-category bias and to increase spontaneous naming of the standard picture with familiar words; and (c) that there is essentially a zero correlation between the tendency to name the standard picture and the frequency of taxonomic choices during the match-to-sample task.

Can Summer Vacation Be Detrimental To Learning? An Empirical Look

Abstract This study examined the performance of four autistic boys each trained to a criterion of 80 percent correct on two sets of noun labels. After training, one set of labels was reviewed twice a week for nine weeks (summer vacation); the other set received no additional training. Performance on both sets was then retested. Each boy showed greater retention of the rehearsed compared with the unrehearsed material; one, placed on a VR3 schedule of reinforcement during the final stages of training, showed slightly better retention of the unrehearsed material than two trained exclusively with a CRF schedule. The authors argue that these data provide beginning support for the contention that seriously developmentally disabled children need to be in a program which offers year‐round schooling rather than an 180‐day school year.

Visual Superiority Effect in Memory (Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words)

A question of current theoretical interest that concerns the nature of both recall and recognition of displayed information is the contention that there is pictorial superiority effect (PSE) in memory. In recent years there has been considerable discussion about the notion that pictures are better retained than their verbal labels. There is a good deal of evidence from a variety of recall, recognition and pair-associate learning tasks that have shown this contention to be true. Just what do people remember about a picture? Questions concerning the nature of memory for pictures continue to challenge the curiosity of experimental psychologists. Are words and pictures encoded distinctively? That is, does the memory of an item contain information to indicate whether the item was presented as a word or as a picture? Is there a distinctive processing for words and pictures? The purpose of this paper is to discuss studies rendering support to the notion of pictorial superiority in memory. A number of experiments (e.g., Paivio, 1968, 1966) have shown that picture-pairs are much easier to recognize than pairs comprised of their concrete verbal labels or descriptions. Paivio and Yarmey (1966) obtained support for this hypothesis in a study in which pictures and their noun labels were factorially varied on the stimulus and response side of pairs. Further, Paivio and Yarmey demonstrated that in paired-associate learning, retention appears to function as a single effective dimension that extends from abstract nouns, to concrete nouns to pictures (or objects) in increasing order of effectiveness. The question of the superiority effect of pictorial memory has been investigated by psychologists in the field of memory research. There appear to be at least three possible explanations relative to the source of pictures/word differences. The first model (processing level model) suggests that there are analogous processing stages for pictures and words, but the time required for processing each stage is less for pictorial input. The second model (sensory semantic model) suggests that pictorial inputs require fewer processing transformations than verbal inputs before semantic processing occurs. Finally, the dual encoding model suggests two separate but interconnected verbal and non-verbal processing or symbolic systems. This model argues that pictorial stimuli generate simultaneous verbal and non-verbal long-term memory codes; whereas, words don't generally elicit their pictorial code. The finding that memory is generally better for pictorial than verbal labels is not surprising. The sensory and meaning codes for a picture are apparently more differentiating and less susceptible to interferences. Presumably, more associative cues may be attached to stimuli which have rich visual, as well as verbal associates, so that both recall and recognition performance are improved with pictorial stimuli.

Transfer between receptive and productive language in developmentally disabled children.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between receptive and productive language acquisition in developmentally disabled children. A single‐subject operant methodology was employed to evaluate the effect of training in one mode on performance in the other mode. Noun labels for pictured objects were used as the unit of analysis. Six children with severe language deficits participated in the experiment. Each subject learning to identify a different set of five pictures in each of four successively administered training conditions. In the first condition, a set of pictures was trained in the productive mode. In the second condition, a different set was trained in the receptive mode. These training conditions were then repeated using two additional sets of pictures. Training was done using reinforcement for correct responses and prompting for incorrect responses. Nonreinforced probes were conducted throughout training to assess performance in the untrained mode. The pictures in each set were trained successively so that transfer across the language modes could be studied separately for each response trained. All subjects successfully met the criteria for learning each picture set in both the receptive and productive training conditions. The probe data showed that opposite‐modality performance improved as a function of both types of training, although performance levels differed. After productive training, five of six subjects' performance was highly accurate on receptive probes. By contrast, receptive training resulted in limited correct productive performance. Transfer from receptive training was negatively related to subjects' use of extra‐experimental labels on productive probe trials. In addition to these competing response errors, subjects frequently made articulation errors. The findings suggest that for retarded children similar to those studied here, productive training will be sufficient to establish accurate receptive performance on vocabulary tasks. However, receptive training does not appear to be either a necessary or a sufficient condition for productive performance. The results do not support the reception‐then‐production training sequence based on normal language development.

Pictures versus Words as Stimuli in Paired-Associate Transfer

A comparison of the A-B, A-D and A-B, C-D transfer paradigms was made with pictures or their concrete noun labels as stimuli and concrete nouns as responses. The purpose of the study was to determine if stimuli of high potential imagery (pictures) would be less subject to negative transfer than stimuli of lower potential imagery (concrete words). There were no differential transfer effects as a function of stimulus imagery. The results are interpreted as failing to support the mnemonists' claim of a reduction in associative interference with imagery.