Do Words Facilitate Object Categorization in 9-Month-Old Infants?

Balaban, Marie T.; Waxman, Sandra R.

doi:10.1006/jecp.1996.2332

Cited by 341 publications

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“…However, it was interesting that infants' performance did not differ as a function of their reported comprehension of "on." One reason for this finding may be that nearly all of the infants in each condition were reported to comprehend "on," such that there were an insufficient number of infants who did not understand the label to detect any difference between the two groups of infants.The present experiments add to a growing literature on the relation between cognitive development and early linguistic development (Balaban & Waxman, 1997;Gentner & Namy, 1999;Gopnik et al, 1996;Namy & Gentner, 2002;Waxman & Booth, 2001;Waxman & Hall, 1993;Waxman & Markow, 1995). The present results demonstrate that a specific label directs infants' attention not only to commonalities across objects and object properties (Balaban & Waxman, 1997;Booth & Waxman, 2002;Roberts & Jacob, 1991;Waxman & Booth, 2001) but also to commonalities in a spatial relation.…”

supporting

confidence: 73%

“…However, a lack of experimental evidence has made the feasibility of this argument difficult to measure. Given that a specific word can facilitate infants' ability to form a category of objects (e.g., Balaban & Waxman, 1997;Waxman & Markow, 1995), it is possible that analogous results could be obtained with infants' ability to form an abstract categorical representation of a spatial relation. To explore this possibility, I examined the effect of linguistic input on infants' ability to form an abstract categorical representation of a spatial relation across two experiments.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Similarly, Gentner and Boroditsky (2001) proposed that a common label motivates children to attend to commonalities in their environment. However, they advanced this proposition further by arguing that the common label motivates children to make comparisons, which in turn facilitates the acquisition of the corresponding concept (Gentner & Namy, 1999).Although there has been ample evidence to demonstrate that a novel word aids infants and children in forming a category of objects (e.g., Balaban & Waxman, 1997;Booth & Waxman, 2002;Gentner & Namy, 1999;Namy & Gentner, 2002), research has yet to investigate whether the same is true for infants' ability to form a categorical representation of a spatial relation. Recently, however, Loewenstein and Gentner (in press) found that relational language facilitated preschool children's performance in a spatial mapping task.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Can Language Do the Driving? The Effect of Linguistic Input on Infants' Categorization of Support Spatial Relations.

Casasola¹

2005

Developmental Psychology

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Two experiments explored the effect of linguistic input on 18-month-olds' ability to form an abstract categorical representation of support. Infants were habituated to 4 support events (i.e., one object placed on another) and were tested with a novel support and a novel containment event. Infants formed an abstract category of support (i.e., looked significantly longer at the novel than familiar relation) when hearing the word "on" during habituation but not when viewing the events in silence (Experiment 1) or when hearing general phrases or a novel word (Experiment 2). Results indicate that a familiar word can facilitate infants' formation of an abstract spatial category, leading them to form a category that they do not form in the absence of the word.On one side of the long-standing debate on the relation between thought and language has been the view that language can be a strong force in the development of particular concepts (Gopnik & Choi, 1995;Gopnik, Choi, & Baumberger, 1996;Vygotsky, 1962;Xu, 1999). This view has been particularly prominent in discussions of how children acquire the meanings expressed in relational terms, such as verbs and prepositions (Bowerman & Choi, 2001, with some researchers proposing that language may guide the development of relational concepts (e.g., Bowerman, 1996;Bowerman & Choi, 2001;Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001;Talmy, 1983). Language does guide how young children organize spatial events into language-specific semantic spatial categories (Choi & Bowerman, 1991), raising the question of whether experience with a particular spatial morpheme inspires children to form categories of spatial events that they may not otherwise form. However, a lack of experimental evidence has made the feasibility of this argument difficult to measure. Given that a specific word can facilitate infants' ability to form a category of objects (e.g., Balaban & Waxman, 1997;Waxman & Markow, 1995), it is possible that analogous results could be obtained with infants' ability to form an abstract categorical representation of a spatial relation. To explore this possibility, I examined the effect of linguistic input on infants' ability to form an abstract categorical representation of a spatial relation across two experiments.One reason that language is thought to shape the spatial categories that young children form is the myriad ways in which languages organize spatial events, such as placing a cup on the table or a picture on the wall, into the same or many different semantic categories (Bowerman, 1989(Bowerman, , 1996. Perhaps the most well-known example is the difference between English and Korean (Choi & Bowerman, 1991). English speakers linguistically divide events with containment and support relations into two distinct semantic categories: They label containment events as "in" and support events as "on." In contrast, Korean speakers Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Marianella Casasola, Department of Human Development, Cornell University, G38 MVR Hall, Ithaca, NY 1...

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confidence: 98%

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Can Language Do the Driving? The Effect of Linguistic Input on Infants' Categorization of Support Spatial Relations.

Casasola¹

2005

Developmental Psychology

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“…In contrast to previous studies of language and cognition where experimenters provide infants with labels (e.g., Balaban & Waxman, 1997;Fulkerson & Waxman, 2007;Waxman & Braun, 2005) or brief descriptions of the actions (e.g., Hayne & Herbert, 2004), we allowed for more naturalistic descriptions of the event. Mean imitation scores (+/-1SE) as a function of experimental group.…”

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confidence: 99%

The role of demonstrator familiarity and language cues on infant imitation from television

Seehagen¹,

Herbert²

2010

Infant Behavior and Development

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An imitation procedure was used to investigate the impact of demonstrator familiarity and language cues on infant learning from television. Eighteen-month-old infants watched two pre-recorded videos showing an adult demonstrating a sequence of actions with two sets of stimuli. Infants' familiarity with the demonstrator and the language used during the demonstration varied as a function of experimental condition. Immediately after watching each video, infants' ability to reproduce the target actions was assessed. A highly familiar demonstrator did not enhance infants' performance. However, the addition of a narrative, developed from mothers' naturalistic description of the event, facilitated learning from an unfamiliar demonstrator. We propose that the differential effect of demonstrator familiarity and language cues may reflect the infants' ability to distinguish between important and less important aspects in a learning situation. AbstractAn imitation procedure was used to investigate the impact of demonstrator familiarity and lan-

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“…For example, even when words and meanings are unknown, as is the case with very young children or with the use of novel words, linguistic labels facilitate learning (e.g., Lupyan, Rakison, & McClelland, 2007). Research with young children has shown that words facilitate category learning more than non-linguistic cues (Balaban & Waxman, 1997;Waxman & Booth, 2003;Waxman & Markow, 1995). In addition, adults show faster learning and more robust retention when novel categories are associated with linguistic labels relative to non-linguistic cues (Lupyan, 2008).…”

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confidence: 99%

When Do Words Promote Analogical Transfer?

Son¹,

Doumas²,

Goldstone³

2010

The Journal of Problem Solving

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Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to explore how and when verbal labels facilitate relational reasoning and transfer. We review the research and theory behind two ways words might direct attention to relational information: (1) words generically invite people to compare and thus highlight relations (the Generic Tokens [GT] hypothesis), and/or (2) words carry semantic cues to common structure (the Cues to Specific Meaning [CSM] hypothesis). Four experiments examined whether learning Signal Detection Theory (SDT) with relational words fostered better transfer than learning without relational words in easily alignable and less alignable situations (testing the GT hypothesis) as well as when the relational words matched and mismatched the semantics of the learning situation (testing the CSM hypothesis). The results of the experiments found support for the GT hypothesis because the presence of relational labels produced better transfer when two situations were alignable. Although the CSM hypothesis does not explain how words facilitate transfer, we found that mismatches between words and their labeled referents can produce a situation where words hinder relational learning.

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Do Words Facilitate Object Categorization in 9-Month-Old Infants?

Cited by 341 publications

References 45 publications

Can Language Do the Driving? The Effect of Linguistic Input on Infants' Categorization of Support Spatial Relations.

Can Language Do the Driving? The Effect of Linguistic Input on Infants' Categorization of Support Spatial Relations.

The role of demonstrator familiarity and language cues on infant imitation from television

When Do Words Promote Analogical Transfer?

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