Summary: Babies as young as 15 months old you deduce the meaning of words referring to things they have never seen from language environment. Scientists discovered that when 15-month-olds first heard a new term in a well-known context, like “kumquat” during a conversation about fruit, they could eventually properly identify the unknown thing.
Without clear visual cues, this ability to create a mental “gist” of meaning is a significant milestone in language development. The findings demonstrate that babies constantly construct knowledge from language even from things they didn’t see. They are not just passive listeners.
Important Information
- First Word Inference: Young infants aged 15 months old you infer meanings from previously unknown words using context.
- Infants create a “gist” of fresh words without visible signals, according to psychological picture.
- Developmental Insight: The investigation reveals how speech drives philosophical teaching in young children.
Northwestern University as a cause
Human vocabulary enables us to pick up new words for situations that we’ve never explicitly witnessed. We easily do this, for instance, when we speak in conversation and infer a fresh word’s meaning from the context.
But when does this capability first become accessible? And what allows us to develop a brand-new mental picture of an object or event that we can’t see instantly?
A new research by development scientists at Northwestern University and Harvard University provides the second proof that infants as young as 15 months can determine an item from language learning, even if the item is still hidden.
Picture a young child playing with blocks on the floor while parents discuss kumquats in a discussion about more common fruits like apples and bananas.
Could the infant come up with the idea or gist of what kumquat means: something edible, good a fruit? May they use this first idea when the child first encounters a novel fruit later on?
The researchers sought to find the solution to these queries.
” Many people think that the child must “map” a new term to an image that is physically present ( such as, Look at the kumquat! ),”” says one author. ” ).
It is very popular for us, and for babies, to hear thoughts when the materials to which they refer are not immediately accessible, said senior author Sandra Waxman.
We’re enquiring whether babies can understand their way around the verbal contexts in which words are used.
Waxman is a Northwestern Institute for Policy Research Fellow, the chairman of the Infant and Child Development Center, and the Louis W. Menk Professor of Psychology.
Elena Luchkina, originally a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern and now a research scientist at Harvard, is the article’s co-author.
In a three-part process, the experts engaged 134 kids, 67 each at 12 times and 15 months.
First, the researchers gave infants words that they understood and images of the objects they referenced ( for example, apples, bananas, grapes ). Next, infants began to hear a new word while the image of a novel object ( like a kumquat ) was obscured from their view.
Finally, two novel objects ( like a whisk and a kumquat ) were revealed, and infants were asked,” Where is the kumquat?”
Not 12-month-olds, but fifteen-month-olds, looked more closely at the novel fruit ( such as kumquat ) than the novel artifact ( such as whisk ).
15-month-olds used the framework signs to determine which item was most likely the one to which the novel expression referred despite not seeing any thing paired with it.
Even if the items or situations being discussed are no present,” The research shows that even children who are just beginning to claim their first thoughts learn from the language they hear,” Waxman said.
Babies absorb what they hear, and even when there is no object present, they create a mental representation, or “gist,” of the new word’s meaning, that is useful for them when its referent object does indeed appear.
Waxman suggested that infants may not yet be familiar with the words they have heard in the context to begin forming a representation or the gist of the new word’s meaning ( for example, that it is likely another fruit ).
Gleaning the definition of kumquat
Without the presence of any visible objects, the researchers developed a potent test to determine how much language input infants can acquire from language alone.
The study provides fresh insight into the developmental roots of the human capacity to learn about non-perceptual things. It also addresses how early the human mind can produce mental representations of things and events that have never been directly witnessed.
This new publication also highlights the impact of language in infants ‘ daily lives. Infants frequently hear words that they don’t yet understand and can’t “map” directly to an object or event while they are conversing with others and reading books.
By the time a baby is 15 months old, the linguistic context in which a new word first appears to them will create a gist of its meaning that will guide subsequent learning.
When we encounter new words like “kumquat” in conversation without kumquats present, we don’t waste the chance to bring the meaning of” Waxman said” to life. We now know that this is also true of tiny infants.
About this language and learning research news
Author: Stephanie Kulke
Source: Northwestern University
Contact: Stephanie Kulke – Northwestern University
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Free of charge.
By Sandra Waxman et al.,” By the 15th month, infants begin to learn new words for objects, even those they’ve never seen.” PLOS One
Abstract
Infants start picking up new words for objects, even those they have never seen, at the age of 15 months.
Human language enables us to recall representations of things, people, and ideas that we can’t see directly, giving us the ability to understand the world from a distance that is beyond our immediate immediate surroundings. When and how does this capacity start to emerge?
In order to answer this query, we tested infants at the ages of 12 and 15 months and asked whether they established the meaning of a novel noun without the presence of any visible referents and used the evaluation to find a potential referent.
Infants ( 67 12-month-olds and 67 15-month-olds ) were taught words and images of objects from a particular semantic neighborhood ( for example, fruits ), and they were also given a novel noun ( e .g., a modi” ), which was used to name a hidden object.
Infants were given the noun again during the test, this time with two unfamiliar objects present, one from the primed neighborhood ( like a dragon fruit ) and the other from an unrelated semantic neighborhood ( like an ottoman ).
At the test, infants should prefer the object from the primed semantic neighborhood if they can represent something about the meaning of the novel noun in the absence of a visible referent and then use such a representation when a candidate referent appears.
Infants had a good time at 15 months. 12-month-olds, in contrast, did not succeed in this task despite receiving a full week of vocabulary training designed to increase the effect of priming.
Then, it’s possible that 12-month-olds ‘ representations of novel nouns ‘ meaning are not yet sufficiently rich ( if any at all ) to influence their choice of referent when one does indeed appear.
Between 12 and 15 months after these findings, the ability to establish a representation of a novel noun’s meaning in the absence of any discernible referent and use this representation later to identify a potential referent object emerges.
