Metacognitive developments in word learning: Mutual exclusivity and theory of mind

Abstract

This study examines the flexibility with which children can use pragmatic information to determine word reference. Extensive previous research shows that children choose an unfamiliar object as referent of a novel name: the disambiguation effect. We added a pragmatic cue indirectly indicating a familiar object as intended referent. In three experiments, preschool children's ability to take this cue into account was specifically associated with false belief understanding and the ability to produce familiar alternative names (e.g., rabbit, animal) for a given referent. The association was predicted by the hypothesis that all three tasks require an understanding of perspective (linguistic or mental).The findings indicate that perspectival understanding is required to take into account indirect pragmatic information to suspend the disambiguation effect. Implications for lexical principles and socio-pragmatic theories of word learning are discussed.Keywords: word learning, mutual exclusivity bias, disambiguation effect, theory of mind, metacognition METACOGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTS IN WORD LEARNING 4 Metacognitive developments in word learning:Mutual Exclusivity and theory of mind A frequent observation, both in word learning research and in everyday life, is that young children appear to assume that each object kind has only one name. This tendency can be demonstrated experimentally using what is known as the disambiguation paradigm (e.g., Markman & Wachtel, 1988;Merriman & Bowman, 1989). In the presence of a familiar nameable object and an unfamiliar object children are asked to pick the referent of a novel name. For example, when shown a familiar apple, and an unfamiliar whisk, and asked to pick the "hinkle", children typically choose the novel object. This disambiguation effect is very robust and has been extensively used in research. It can be demonstrated from late infancy (e.g., Halberda, 2003;Markman, Wasow, & Hansen, 2003). It also constitutes a test case for differing theories about the nature of word learning, and about the relationship between word learning and metacognitive development. Determining the underlying cause of disambiguation is of broad theoretical importance.There are three general explanations of the phenomenon. (Others have proposed combinations of these explanations or hybrid accounts, e.g., Hollich, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff, 2000a, but we focus on these three for brevity.) The phenomenon is frequently identified as the 'Mutual Exclusivity bias ' (e.g., Markman, 1989;Merriman & Bowman, 1989), based on the idea that children assume word extensions to be mutually exclusive.Other lexical principles accounts have been proposed in which children prefer to map novel names to nameless categories (N3C; Golinkoff, Mervis, & Hirsh-Pasek, 1994) or vice versa (bias to fill lexical gaps, Merriman & Bowman, 1989). Unlike the Mutual Exclusivity bias, neither account predicts difficulty mapping novel names to nameable categories if other options are not apparent. METACOGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTS IN WORD...

The pragmatics of discovery constrains children’s tendency to map novel labels onto novel objects

“…Three-year-olds tended to select the novel object, but 5-year-olds tended to select the familiar object. Gollek and Doherty (2016) found a similar difference between 3- and 4-year-olds in a study of Austrian children and similar trends in two studies of 3- and 4-year-old Scottish children.…”

“…Gollek and Doherty (2016) proposed that unless a child understood that two labels can express different perspectives on the same object, they would be reluctant to satisfy the pragmatic cue by overriding their usual tendency to avoid mapping a novel label to an object with a known label. In support of this proposal, they found that in each of their studies, performance on tests of understanding of multiple perspective (e.g., understanding of false belief) predicted selection of the familiar object as the referent of the novel label, even after the effects of age and vocabulary size were statistically controlled.…”

Piecing Together the Puzzle of Pictorial Representation: How Jigsaw Puzzles Index Metacognitive Development

“…These findings suggest that the use of pictorial information in jigsaw puzzle completion reflects the development of a general concept of representation, which is evident in the mental, graphical and pictorial domain. This adds to the body of literature showing linked metarepresentational developments across the linguistic, mental, and pictorial domains (Diaz & Farrar, 2018;Doherty & Perner, 1998;Doherty & Wimmer, 2005;Gollek, & Doherty, 2016;Perner & Roessler, 2012;Perner et al, 2002;Wimmer & Doherty, 2011). Specifically, we suggest that children begin to understand that pictorial elements, such as lines and patches of color, can be arranged to produce a picture.…”

Mental files: Developmental integration of dual naming and theory of mind

“…The emergence of this ability around 4 years explains why these tasks are mastered at this age and strongly correlate. This has been demonstrated in eleven published experiments, total N = 513, 0.53 ≤ r ≤ 0.77; 0.29 ≤ r p ≤ 0.59 with age, or age and verbal IQ controlled (Diaz & Farrar, 2018;Doherty, 2000;Doherty & Perner, 1998;Gollek & Doherty, 2016;Perner et al, 2002;Wimmer & Doherty, 2011).…”

“…This prediction was examined by Gollek and Doherty (2016), who simply gave 2-to 5-year-old children the false belief task, alternative naming task, and the pragmatic-cue version of the disambiguation task. All three were strongly associated over three experiments (all r between 0.40 and 0.69), even beyond common associations with age, verbal mental age, and inhibitory ability (all partial r between 0.35 and 0.53).…”