The Emergence of Words: Attentional Learning in Form and Meaning

Abstract

Children improve at word learning during the 2nd year of life-sometimes dramatically. This fact has suggested a change in mechanism, from associative learning to a more referential form of learning. This article presents an associative exemplar-based model that accounts for the improvement without a change in mechanism. It provides a unified account of children's growing abilities to (a) learn a new word given only 1 or a few training trials ("fast mapping"); (b) acquire words that differ only slightly in phonological form; (c) generalize word meanings preferentially along particular dimensions, such as object shape (the "shape bias"); and (d) learn 2nd labels for already-named objects, despite a persisting resistance to doing so ("mutual exclusivity"). The model explains these improvements in terms of increased attention to relevant aspects of form and meaning, which reduces memory interference. The interaction of associations and reference in word learning is discussed.

The Role of Novelty in Early Word Learning

“…In this respect, computational models may prove useful for understanding how the infant is able to reject second names for objects. In associative models of word learning such as the CALLED model (Merriman, 1999) and the LEX model (Regier, 2005), mutual exclusivity is an emergent property of a system where the retrieval of a name for a familiar object competes or interferes with the learning of a new name for the object. Similar forms of competition in learning can be found in phenomena such as blocking (Kamin, 1969) and proactive interference (Underwood, 1957).…”

Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space

“…Liljencrants and Lindblom (15) explored the space of possible vowel systems and found that those with the greatest perceptual contrast corresponded fairly well to vowel systems found in the world's languages. If related ideas can account for universal tendencies in named color categories across languages, then that would suggest a loose parallel between the forces that create categories of sound and those that create categories of meaning (16,17).…”

Mechanisms of Cognitive Development: Domain-General Learning or Domain-Specific Constraints?

“…Consistent with this proposal, several models (e.g., Mayor & Plunkett, 2010;Regier, 2005) have shown how mutual exclusivity might emerge in cue interactions in associative learning. Also consistent with this proposal are studies tracking moment-to-moment eye gaze direction in infants (Halberda, 2009); the attention shifting by infants in these studies resembles those of adults in highlighting experiments .…”