Second label learning in bilingual and monolingual infants

Abstract

Mutual exclusivity is the assumption that each object has only one category label. Prior research suggests that bilingual infants, unlike monolingual infants, fail to adhere to this assumption to guide word learning. Yet previous work has not addressed whether bilingual infants systematically interpret a novel word for a familiar object (i.e. an object with a known category label) as a second category label. We addressed this question by exploring bilingual and monolingual infants' use of mutual exclusivity in a task in which they heard a novel label for a familiar object with a salient color (e.g. an aqua-colored dog). They were subsequently tested with two trials that probed whether they interpreted the word as a second category label for the object (e.g. another word meaning dog) or as a label for one of the object's salient properties, namely its color (e.g. a word meaning aqua). Bilingual infants failed to adhere to mutual exclusivity and interpreted the novel word systematically as a second object category label for the familiar object. In contrast, consistent with their use of mutual exclusivity, monolingual infants rejected the novel word as a second category label, and instead showed some evidence of interpreting it as a property (color) term for the familiar object. The findings suggest that both bilingual and monolingual infants are systematic in their interpretation of a novel label for a familiar object, but that they show different interpretations of that label. We thus argue that theoretical accounts of early word learning must consider the crucial role of linguistic experience.

Acceptance of lexical overlap by monolingual and bilingual toddlers

“…Previous research indicates that early linguistic experience can impact the extent to which children employ ME as a default word-learning strategy in their second year of life (Byers-Heinlein & Werker, 2009;2013;Davidson et al, 1997;Kalashnikova et al, 2016bKalashnikova et al, , 2018Kandhadai et al, 2017). However, the aspects of early language experience that lead to successful acceptance of lexical overlap by both monolingual and bilingual children remain unclear.…”

“…However, the aspects of early language experience that lead to successful acceptance of lexical overlap by both monolingual and bilingual children remain unclear. For example, Frank and Poulin-Dubois (2002) suggested that at the age of two years, ACCEPTANCE OF LEXICAL OVERLAP 9 monolingual and bilingual children did not differ in their ability to accept two overlapping labels for the same object, whereas more recent evidence suggests that bilingual children show greater flexibility in their reliance on ME as early as at 18 months of age (Kandhadai et al, 2017). The aim of the present study was to investigate monolingual and bilingual children's ability to learn two labels for the same object, and to investigate the relation between the development of this ability and children's increasing lexical competence and patterns of language exposure (monolingual vs. bilingual).…”

The development of fast‐mapping and novel word retention strategies in monolingual and bilingual infants

“…In addition, given that the retention phase was presented in this task immediately after the disambiguation task (and therefore without a delay), we predicted that monolingual children would show the ability to retain the learned labels (Kucker & Samuelson, ; Spiegel & Halberda, ). However, it was predicted that bilinguals would exhibit a lower rate of retention than monolinguals because past research suggests that, in comparison to monolinguals, bilinguals do not (i) develop an early disambiguation effect (Byers‐Heinlein & Werker, ; Houston‐Price et al., ), and (ii) are more likely to suspend this assumption to accept referentially overlapping labels (Kalashnikova, Mattock et al., ; Kandhadai, Hall, & Werker, ). This would indicate that ME may not be consolidated as a word‐learning strategy for children learning more than one language.…”

Actions speak louder than words: Differences in memory flexibility between monolingual and bilingual 18‐month‐olds

“…The ME assumption poses a problem for bilingual infants, however, because the child is frequently provided with more than one label for an individual object. Monolingual infants adopt the ME principle (mapping one word to one object) beginning at 17 to 22 months, but bilingual infants have not been shown to adopt the ME principle in this age range (Byers-Heinlein & Werker, 2009; Houston-Price, Caloghiris, & Raviglione, 2010) and have demonstrated different label use strategies based on prior word learning experience (Kandhadai, Hall, & Werker, 2017 Specifically, an experiment could test whether there are differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in the formation of hierarchical representations and whether these differences are associated with differences in neural activation patterns in the frontostriatal pathway.…”