Basic Level Object Categories Support the Acquisition of Novel Adjectives: Evidence from Preschool‐Aged Children

Klibanoff, Raquel S.; Waxman, Sandra R.

doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00173

Cited by 104 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The Klibanoff and Waxman (2000) results have interesting implications for color-function priming. First, the results suggest that the pound-pour and stir-lift procedures that we have used to date have been effective because the two objects of each exemplar pair (whether spoons or containers) were very similar -in fact they were identical except for their color and the function in which they engaged.…”

Section: The Role Of Comparison In Forming Categorical Event Represenmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…For example, Klibanoff and Waxman (2000; investigated the extent to which comparison, and the formation of object categories, influenced the extension of novel adjectives in preschoolers. In one study , 3-and 4-year-olds were shown a target object and the experimenter used a novel adjective to describe the object (e.g., "The horse is blickish.").…”

Section: The Role Of Comparison In Forming Categorical Event Represenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Why did the experience of mapping a novel adjective within (but not across) a basic level category enhance 3-year-olds' capacity to subsequently map a novel adjective across basic level categories? Klibanoff and Waxman (2000) suggested that seeing the target and test objects together provided infants with the opportunity to directly compare the objects and to identify ways in which the objects were the same and ways in which they were different (see Gentner & Gunn, 2001;Gentner & Markman, 1994;Gentner & Namy, 1999 for support for this proposal). When the target and test objects belonged to the same basic level category the objects were similar in many respects, making it easy for infants to identify relevant differences.…”

Section: The Role Of Comparison In Forming Categorical Event Represenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Color–function categories that prime infants to use color information in an object individuation task

Wilcox

Woods

Chapa

2008

Cognitive Psychology

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There is evidence for developmental hierarchies in the type of information to which infants attend when reasoning about objects. Investigators have questioned the origin of these hierarchies and how infants come to identify new sources of information when reasoning about objects. The goal of the present experiments was to shed light on this debate by identifying conditions under which infants' sensitivity to color information, which is slow to emerge, could be enhanced in an object individuation task. The outcome of Experiment 1 confirmed and extended previous reports that 9.5-month-olds can be primed, through exposure to events in which the color of an object predicts its function, to attend to color differences in a subsequent individuation task. The outcomes of Experiments 2 to 4 revealed age-related changes in the nature of the representations that support color priming. This is exemplified by three main findings. First, the representations that are formed during the colorfunction events are relatively specific. That is, infants are primed to use the color difference seen in the color-function events to individuate objects in the test events, but not other color differences. Second, 9.5-month-olds can be led to form more abstract event representations, and then generalize to other colors in the test events if they are shown multiple pairs of colors in the color-function events. Third, slightly younger 9-month-olds also can be led to form more inclusive categories with multiple color pairs, but only when they are allowed to directly compare the exemplars in each color pair during the present events. These results shed light on the development of categorization abilities, cognitive mechanisms that support color-function priming, and the kinds of experiences that can increase infants' sensitivity to color information.

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Section: The Role Of Comparison In Forming Categorical Event Represenmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: The Role Of Comparison In Forming Categorical Event Represenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Role Of Comparison In Forming Categorical Event Represenmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Color–function categories that prime infants to use color information in an object individuation task

Wilcox

Woods

Chapa

2008

Cognitive Psychology

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“…If the novel word in the phrase a TIV one is interpreted as an adjective, the child should choose the property match over the kind match. While children under 3-years-old reliably interpret This is a TIV as referring to a category name, they fail to interpret This is a TIV one as referring to a property, extending the novel word to the test object that matches in kind rather than in texture (Hall, 1994;Hall, Waxman & Hurwitz, 1993;Klibanoff & Waxman, 2000;Taylor & Gelman, 1988;Waxman & Kosowski, 1990, Waxman & Markow, 1998. Although consistent with the observation that adjectives are generally harder to learn than nouns, the magnitude and robustness of these negative findings are somewhat surprising given that by 30 months of age English-learning children are typically speaking upwards of 50 descriptive words (Dale & Fenson, 1996).…”

Section: Learning the Meanings Of Adjectivesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Knowing what a novel word is not: Two-year-olds ‘listen through’ ambiguous adjectives in fluent speech

Thorpe

Fernald

2006

Cognition

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Three studies investigated how 24-month-olds and adults resolve temporary ambiguity in fluent speech when encountering prenominal adjectives potentially interpretable as nouns. Children were tested in a looking-while-listening procedure to monitor the time course of speech processing. In Experiment 1, the familiar and unfamiliar adjectives preceding familiar target nouns were accented or deaccented. Target word recognition was disrupted only when lexically ambiguous adjectives were accented like nouns. Experiment 2 measured the extent of interference experienced by children when interpreting prenominal words as nouns. In Experiment 3, adults used prosodic cues to identify the form class of adjective/noun homophones in string-identical sentences before the ambiguous words were fully spoken. Results show that children and adults use prosody in conjunction with lexical and distributional cues to 'listen through' prenominal adjectives, avoiding costly misinterpretation. KeywordsLanguage development; Speech processing; Ambiguity resolution; Eye movements; Eye-tracking; On-line measures; Speed of processing; Adjectives; Prenominal adjectives; Form class; Prosody; Lexical development; Grammatical development Adults interpret spoken language incrementally, assigning structure to linguistic input continuously as the speech signal unfolds. Although the process of comprehension seems effortless to the fluent adult, incremental processing in fact leads inevitably and continuously to potential problems of ambiguity as the listener attempts to interpret the meaning of a spoken utterance. Because speech unfolds from moment to moment, it is frequently the case that a number of alternative interpretations are possible at a particular point in time, only one of which will be correct. In a sentence such as Susie fixed her back porch, there is ambiguity at multiple levels of linguistic structure at different time points. For example, halfway through the verb, fix-, the sentence could go on to describe how Susie either fixes or fixates something, and on hearing Susie fixed her back-, the listener might prematurely infer that Susie had consulted a chiropractor rather than a carpenter. For adults, the process of recognizing words and resolving temporary ambiguities in spoken language is remarkably fast and efficient, enabled by the use of predictive cues from multiple sources of information in the speech stream. Using extensive knowledge of language and the world, adults can typically rely on linguistic and contextual information to constrain the possibilities of interpretation, so that understanding happens accurately and effortlessly as the sentence unfolds (e.g.

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“…Akhtar and Montague (1999) demonstrate that children use cross-situational learning to discover the meanings of novel adjectives. Klibanoff and Waxman (2000), furthermore, provide empirical support for their proposal that adjectival categories are learned cross-situationally, within the context of basic level categories.…”

Section: Learning Colour Words Is Slow: a Cross-situational Learning mentioning

confidence: 57%

language impairment and colour categories

Davidoff¹,

Luzzatti²

2005

Behav Brain Sci

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Basic Level Object Categories Support the Acquisition of Novel Adjectives: Evidence from Preschool‐Aged Children

Cited by 104 publications

References 31 publications

Color–function categories that prime infants to use color information in an object individuation task

Color–function categories that prime infants to use color information in an object individuation task

Knowing what a novel word is not: Two-year-olds ‘listen through’ ambiguous adjectives in fluent speech

language impairment and colour categories

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