What’s new? Children prefer novelty in referent selection

Abstract

Determining the referent of a novel name is a critical task for young language learners. The majority of studies on children’s referent selection focus on manipulating the sources of information (linguistic, contextual and pragmatic) that children can use to solve the referent mapping problem. Here, we take a step back and explore how children’s endogenous biases towards novelty and their own familiarity with novel objects influence their performance in such a task. We familiarized 2-year-old children with previously novel objects. Then, on novel name referent selection trials children were asked to select the referent from three novel objects: two previously seen and one completely novel object. Children demonstrated a clear bias to select the most novel object. A second experiment controls for pragmatic responding and replicates this finding. We conclude, therefore, that children’s referent selection is biased by previous exposure and children’s endogenous bias to novelty.

The Role of Novelty in Early Word Learning

“…Through systematically manipulating object novelty within a trial, we were able to provide a more decisive test of the role of novelty than past studies (Horst et al, 2011;Merriman & Bowman, 1989;Merriman & Schuster, 1991). Upon hearing a novel label, the infants increased their attention to the novel object, but not the preexposed object.…”

“…We cannot entirely rule out this possibility, but it is derivative of the infants' sensitivity to novelty and requires justification for additional explanatory constructs. In a related investigation, Horst et al (2011) found that 2-year-olds' preference to select a novel object over a familiarized object as the referent of a novel label was not influenced by the pragmatic context. We also note that this particular pragmatic argument does not explain why infants in Experiment 1 excluded both the preexposed and name-known objects as possible referents.…”

“…Notes 1. Horst et al (2011) included a test of the perceptual salience of novel and preexposed objects, because objects were not counterbalanced across conditions. However, this control did not assess toddlers' preference for novel objects in the absence of a novel label.…”

“…However, the effects of stimulus novelty are not unambiguous. In Merriman and Bowman (1989) and Horst et al (2011), responses to a novel label were not compared with a baseline condition in which objects were not labeled.…”

The Novel Object and Unusual Name (NOUN) Database: A collection of novel images for use in experimental research

“…As such, these objects are particularly well-suited for studies in which participants are learning name-object associations for the first time (e.g., Horst et al, 2011).…”