The power of imageability: How the acquisition of inflected forms is facilitated in highly imageable verbs and nouns in Czech children

Šmolík, Filip; Kříž, Adam

doi:10.1177/0142723715609228

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Words have been found to be acquired earlier the more imageable they are (Bird, Franklin, & Howard, 2001; Ma et al, 2009; McDonough et al, 2011), that is, the more easily they arouse a mental image or sensory experience (Paivio, Yuille, & Madigan, 1968). Imageability also appears to aid the acquisition of morphology: according to Smolík and Kříž (2015), Czech children use inflected forms earlier if the noun or verb in question is highly imageable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What makes a word easy to acquire? The effects of word class, frequency, imageability and phonological neighbourhood density on lexical development

Hansen

2016

First Language

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This article analyses how a set of psycholinguistic factors may account for children's lexical development. Age of acquisition is compared to a measure of lexical development based on vocabulary size rather than age, and robust regression models are used to assess the individual and joint effects of word class, frequency, imageability and phonological neighbourhood density on Norwegian children's early lexical development. The Norwegian Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) norms were used to calculate each CDI word's age of acquisition and vocabulary size of acquisition. Lexical properties were downloaded from the lexical database Norwegian Words, supplemented with data on frequency in adult and child-directed speech. Age of acquisition correlated highly with vocabulary size of acquisition, but the new measure was more evenly distributed and more sensitive to lexical effects. Frequency in childdirected speech was the most important predictor of lexical development, followed by imageability, which seems to account for the dominance of nominals over predicates in Norwegian.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What makes a word easy to acquire? The effects of word class, frequency, imageability and phonological neighbourhood density on lexical development

Hansen

2016

First Language

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“…Since then, there has been ongoing research, connecting language understanding and language acquisition to the imageability of words and concepts. The imageability of verbs has implications on grammar usage for different contexts [42], which could provide helpful knowledge to create more natural language depending on context. There is also a relationship on imageability of words to age of acquisition and reading comprehension, especially relevant for children [8,30].…”

Section: Psycholinguisticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a consequence, imageability of words also correlates with text difficulty, as abstract, unclear words are often harder to grasp. Research in Psychology shows, that this relationship of language and imageability has further implications for language acquisition for children [8,30], language understanding [39], and the use of grammar [42]. The concept of imageability, along with example images for differently imageable words, is visualized in Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the imageability of words by mining visual characteristics from crawled image data

Kastner

Ide

Nack

et al. 2020

Multimed Tools Appl

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“…Indeed, in typically developing (TD) children, the earliest acquired words are concrete and highly imageable (Bird et al, 2001;Gillette et al, 1999;McDonough et al, 2011). Moreover, imageability also facilitates word naming, form, and recall in both children and adults, beyond that of other known predictors, such as word input frequency (Masterson et al, 2008;Paivio et al, 1968;Ramey et al, 2013;Smolik & Kriz, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Word imageability is associated with expressive vocabulary in children with autism spectrum disorder

Lin

Weil

Thurm

et al. 2022

Autism & Developmental Language Impairments

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Background & aims Throughout typical development, children prioritize different perceptual, social, and linguistic cues to learn words. The earliest acquired words are often those that are perceptually salient and highly imageable. Imageability, the ease in which a word evokes a mental image, is a strong predictor for word age of acquisition in typically developing (TD) children, independent of other lexicosemantic features such as word frequency. However, little is known about the effects of imageability in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who tend to have differences in linguistic processing and delayed language acquisition compared to their TD peers. This study explores the extent to which imageability and word frequency are associated with early noun and verb acquisition in children with ASD. Methods Secondary analyses were conducted on previously collected data of 156 children (78 TD, 78 ASD) matched on sex and parent-reported language level. Total expressive vocabulary, as measured by the MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MB-CDI), included 123 words (78 nouns, 45 verbs) that overlapped with previously published imageability ratings and word input frequencies. A two-step hierarchical linear regression was used to examine the relationship between word input frequency, imageability, and total expressive vocabulary. An F-test was then used to assess the unique contribution of imageability on total expressive vocabulary when controlling for word input frequency. Results In both the TD and ASD groups, imageability uniquely explained a portion of the variance in total expressive vocabulary size, independent of word input frequency. Notably, imageability was significantly associated with noun vocabulary and verb vocabulary size alone, with imageability explaining a greater portion of the variance in total nouns produced than in total verbs produced. Conclusions Imageability was identified as a significant lexicosemantic feature for describing expressive vocabulary size in children with ASD. Consistent with literature on TD children, children with ASD who have small vocabularies primarily produce words that are highly imageable. Children who are more proficient word learners with larger vocabularies produce words that are less imageable, indicating a potential shift away from reliance on perceptual-based language processing. This was consistent across both noun and verb vocabularies. Implications Our findings contribute to a growing body of literature describing early word learning in children with ASD and provide a basis for exploring the use of multisensory language learning strategies.

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The power of imageability: How the acquisition of inflected forms is facilitated in highly imageable verbs and nouns in Czech children

Cited by 11 publications

References 50 publications

What makes a word easy to acquire? The effects of word class, frequency, imageability and phonological neighbourhood density on lexical development

What makes a word easy to acquire? The effects of word class, frequency, imageability and phonological neighbourhood density on lexical development

Estimating the imageability of words by mining visual characteristics from crawled image data

Word imageability is associated with expressive vocabulary in children with autism spectrum disorder

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