Our knowledge about the world is represented not merely as a collection of concepts, but as an organized lexico-semantic network in which concepts can be linked by relations, such as “taxonomic” relations between members of the same stable category (e.g., cat and sheep), or association between entities that occur together or in the same context (e.g., sock and foot). To date, accounts of the origins of semantic organization have largely overlooked how sensitivity to statistical regularities ubiquitous in the environment may play a powerful role in shaping semantic development. The goal of the present research was to investigate how associations in the form of statistical regularities with which labels for concepts co-occur in language (e.g., sock and foot) and taxonomic relatedness (e.g., sock and pajamas) shape semantic organization of 4-5-year-olds and adults. To examine these aspects of semantic organization across development, we conducted three experiments examining effects of co-occurrence and taxonomic relatedness on cued recall (Experiment 1), word-picture matching (Experiment 2), and looking dynamics in a Visual World paradigm (Experiment 3). Taken together, the results of the three experiments provide evidence that co-occurrence-based links between concepts manifest in semantic organization from early childhood onward, and are increasingly supplemented by taxonomic links. We discuss these findings in relation to theories of semantic development.

Our knowledge about the world is represented not merely as a collection of concepts, but as an organized lexico-semantic network in which concepts can be linked by relations, such as "taxonomic" relations between members of the same stable category (e.g., cat and sheep), or association between entities that occur together or in the same context (e.g., sock and foot). To date, accounts of the origins of semantic organization have largely overlooked how sensitivity to statistical regularities ubiquitous in the environment may play a powerful role in shaping semantic development. The goal of the present research was to investigate how associations in the form of statistical regularities with which labels for concepts co-occur in language (e.g., sock and foot) and taxonomic relatedness (e.g., sock and pajamas) shape semantic organization of 4-5-year-olds and adults. To examine these aspects of semantic organization across development, we conducted three experiments examining effects of co-occurrence and taxonomic relatedness on cued recall (Experiment 1), word-picture matching (Experiment 2), and looking dynamics in a Visual World paradigm (Experiment 3). Taken together, the results of the three experiments provide evidence that co-occurrence-based links between concepts manifest in semantic organization from early childhood onward, and are increasingly supplemented by taxonomic links. We discuss these findings in relation to theories of semantic development.

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We report the results of a study comparing the temporal dynamics of thematic and taxonomic knowledge activation in a picture-word priming paradigm using event-related potentials. Although we found no behavioral differences between thematic and taxonomic processing, ERP data revealed distinct patterns of N400 and P600 amplitude modulation for thematic and taxonomic priming. Thematically related target stimuli elicited less negativity than taxonomic targets between 280–460 ms after stimulus onset, suggesting easier semantic processing of thematic than taxonomic relationships. Moreover, P600 mean amplitude was significantly increased for taxonomic targets between 520–600 ms, consistent with a greater need for stimulus reevaluation in that condition. These results offer novel evidence in favor of a dissociation between thematic and taxonomic thinking in the early phases of conceptual evaluation.

Evidence from multiple category learning studies suggest that exceptions to a category rule are remembered better than the items that follow that rule (Davis, Love, & Preston, 2012;Palmeri & Nosofsky, 1995;Sakamoto & Love, 2004). Based on differences in recognition memory, it has been suggested that category exceptions may be represented separately from regular category members. Here, we present 4 experiments investigating representations of regular and exceptional category members as well as potential developmental changes in these representations. Although 4-year-olds and adults demonstrated different memory patterns, both age groups showed (a) higher memory sensitivity for regular members of the category and (b) isomorphic memory patterns for regular and exception items. Additionally, we report important developmental differences in generalization patterns. In children, features of regulars and of exceptions contributed to categorization of both regular and exception items. In contrast, an asymmetry was found in adults: features of regulars contributed to categorization of both regular and exception items, whereas features of exceptions contribution only to categorization of exceptions. These findings challenge the hypothesis that items that violate known knowledge structures have a special status in memory and suggest that exceptions can be represented jointly with regular items early in development and as a subset of regular items later in development.

Human word learning is remarkable: We not only learn thousands of words but also form organized semantic networks in which words are interconnected according to meaningful links, such as those between apple, juicy, and pear. These links play key roles in our abilities to use language. How do words become integrated into our semantic networks? Here, we investigated whether humans integrate new words by harnessing simple statistical regularities of word use in language, including: (a) Direct co-occurrence (e.g., eat-apple) and (b) Shared co-occurrence (e.g., apple and pear both co-occur with eat). In four reported experiments (N = 139), semantic priming (Experiments 1–3) and eye-tracking (Experiment 4) paradigms revealed that new words became linked to familiar words following exposure to sentences in which they either directly co-occurred, or shared co-occurrence. This finding highlights a potentially key role for co-occurrence in building organized word knowledge that is fundamental to our unique fluency with language.

With development, we acquire a rich body of knowledge about the world. This knowledge is represented by concepts, denoted by words (e.g., juicy, apple, and pear), which are connected by meaningful, semantic links (e.g., apples and pears are similar, and can both be juicy). One potentially powerful driver of this development is sensitivity to regularities with which words co-occur in language. Specifically, language is rich in regularities that can support: (1) Associative semantic links, between words that directly co-occur (e.g., juicy - apple), and (2) Taxonomic semantic links, between words that share patterns of direct co-occurrence (e.g., apple and pear both co-occur with juicy). Here, we investigated the development of learning abilities to form semantic links from these regularities. Results revealed that both four-year-olds and adults formed semantic links based on direct co-occurrence, whereas formation of links based on shared patterns of co-occurrence was robust only in adults. Our findings further suggest that even abilities to form links based on direct co-occurrence (i.e. associative links) may improve with development, which may, in part, account for the protracted development of links based on shared co-occurrence (i.e. taxonomic links). We discuss how these results may provide key insight into how semantic organization develops.

With development knowledge becomes organized according to semantic links, including early-developing associative (e.g., juicy-apple) and gradually-developing taxonomic links (e.g., apple-pear). Word co-occurrence regularities may foster these links: Associative links may form from direct co-occurrence (e.g., juicy-apple), and taxonomic links from shared co-occurrence (e.g., apple and pear co-occur with juicy). Four experiments (2017-2020) investigated this possibility with 4-8-year-olds (N =148, 82 female) and adults (N =116, 35 female) in a US city with 58.6% White; 29.0% Black, and 5.8% Asian demographics. Results revealed earlier development of the abilities to form direct (d s>0.536) than the abilities to form shared co-occurrence-based links (d s>1.291). We argue that the asynchronous development of abilities to form co-occurrence-based links may explain developmental changes in semantic organization.