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Abstract Objects and places are foundational spatial domains represented in human symbolic expressions, like drawings, which show a prioritization of depicting small-scale object-shape information over the large-scale navigable place information in which objects are situated. Is there a similar object-over-place bias in language? Across six experiments, adults and 3- to 4-year-old children were asked either to extend a novel noun in a labeling phrase, to extend a novel noun in a prepositional phrase, or to simply match pictures. To dissociate specific object and place information from more general figure and ground information, participants either saw scenes with both place information (a room) and object information (a block in the room), or scenes with two kinds of object information that matched the figure-ground relations of the room and block by presenting an open container with a smaller block inside. While adults showed a specific object-over-place bias in both extending novel noun labels and matching, they did not show this bias in extending novel nouns following prepositions. Young children showed this bias in extending novel noun labels only. Spatial domains may thus confer specific and foundational biases for word learning that may change through development in a way that is similar to that of other word-learning biases about objects, like the shape bias. These results expand the symbolic scope of prior studies on object biases in drawing to object biases in language, and they expand the spatial domains of prior studies characterizing the language of objects and places.
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Children use polysemy to structure new word meanings
It is well-known that children rapidly learn words, following a range of heuristics. What is less well appreciated is that – because most words are polysemous and have multiple meanings (e.g., ‘glass’ can label a material and drinking vessel) – children will often be learning a new meaning for a known word, rather than an entirely new word. Across four experiments we show that children flexibly adapt a well-known heuristic – the shape bias – when learning polysemous words. Consistent with previous studies, we find that children and adults preferentially extend a new object label to other objects of the same shape. But we also find that when a new word for an object (‘a gup’) has previously been used to label the material composing that object (‘some gup’), children and adults override the shape bias, and are more likely to extend the object label by material (Experiments 1 and 3). Further, we find that, just as an older meaning of a polysemous word constrains interpretations of a new word meaning, encountering a new word meaning leads learners to update their interpretations of an older meaning (Experiment 2). Finally, we find that these effects only arise when learners can perceive that a word’s meanings are related, not when they are arbitrarily paired (Experiment 4). Together, these findings show that children can exploit cues from polysemy to infer how new word meanings should be extended, suggesting that polysemy may facilitate word learning and invite children to construe categories in new ways.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1632040
- PAR ID:
- 10058041
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of experimental psychology. General
- ISSN:
- 0096-3445
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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