The map trap: Why and how word learning research should move beyond mapping

Wojcik, Erica H.; Zettersten, Martin; Benitez, Viridiana L.

doi:10.1002/wcs.1596

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 109 publications

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“…Given the focus on individual and grounded learning experience, such approaches appear better equipped to explain the already attested individual variation in language competence. Also, given the multiplicity of factors involved in word learning and the variation in contexts in which words are acquired, more sophisticated accounts are, in addition, moving away from classical sound-to-referent mapping approaches (Pace et al, 2016;Rohlfing et al, 2016;Wojcik et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Word learning in ASD: the sensorimotor, the perceptual and the symbolic

2023

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Word learning requires successful pairing of form and meaning. A common hypothesis about the process of word learning is that initially, infants work on identifying the phonological segments corresponding to words (speech analysis), and subsequently map those segments onto meaning. A range of theories have been proposed to account for the underlying mechanisms and factors in this remarkable achievement. While some are mainly concerned with the sensorimotor affordances and perceptual properties of referents out in the world, other theories emphasize the importance of language as a system, and the relations among language units (other words or syntax). Recent approaches inspired by neuro-science suggest that the storage and processing of word meanings is supported by neural systems subserving both the representation of conceptual knowledge and its access and use (Lambon Ralph et al., Nature Reviews Neuroscience 18:42–55, 2017). Developmental disorders have been attested to impact on different aspects of word learning. While impaired word knowledge is not a hallmark of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and remains largely understudied in this population, there is evidence that there are, sometimes subtle, problems in that domain, reflected in both how such knowledge is acquired and how words are used (Vulchanova et al., Word knowledge and word usage: A cross-disciplinary guide to the mental lexicon, Mouton De Gruyter, 2020). In addition, experimental evidence suggests that children with autism present with specific problems in categorizing the referents of linguistic labels leading to subsequent problems with using those labels (Hartley and Allen, Autism 19:570–579, 2015). Furthermore, deficits have been reported in some of the underlying mechanisms, biases and use of cues in word learning, such as e.g., object shape (Field et al., Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 46:1210–1219, 2016; Tek et al., Autism Research 1:208–222, 2008). Finally, it is likely that symbol use might be impaired in ASD, however, the direction of the causal relationship between social and communication impairment in autism and symbolic skills is still an open question (Allen and Lewis, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 45:1–3, 2015; Allen and Butler, British Journal of Developmental Psychology 38:345–362, 2020; Wainwright et al., Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 50:2941–2956, 2020). Further support for impaired symbol formation in autism comes from the well-attested problems with figurative, non-literal language use (e.g., metaphors, idioms, hyperbole, irony) (Vulchanova et al., Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9:24, 2015). Here we propose that embodied theories of cognition which link perceptual experience with conceptual knowledge (see Eigsti, Frontiers in Psychology 4:224, 2013; Klin et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 358:345–360, 2003) might be useful in explaining the difficulty in symbolic understanding that individuals with autism face during the word learning process.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Word learning in ASD: the sensorimotor, the perceptual and the symbolic

2023

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“…Even with these modeling and data limitations, CVCL demonstrates how grounded word learning is achievable from slices of a single child’s experience. There are other aspects of word meaning, such as links to beliefs, intentions, and general semantic knowledge ( 64 , 65 ), that are beyond the scope considered here. Still, CVCL’s promising performance on naturalistic word learning shows the power of combining representation learning and associative learning for addressing a long-standing challenge in early language acquisition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grounded language acquisition through the eyes and ears of a single child

Vong,

Wang,

Orhan

et al. 2024

Science

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Starting around 6 to 9 months of age, children begin acquiring their first words, linking spoken words to their visual counterparts. How much of this knowledge is learnable from sensory input with relatively generic learning mechanisms, and how much requires stronger inductive biases? Using longitudinal head-mounted camera recordings from one child aged 6 to 25 months, we trained a relatively generic neural network on 61 hours of correlated visual-linguistic data streams, learning feature-based representations and cross-modal associations. Our model acquires many word-referent mappings present in the child’s everyday experience, enables zero-shot generalization to new visual referents, and aligns its visual and linguistic conceptual systems. These results show how critical aspects of grounded word meaning are learnable through joint representation and associative learning from one child’s input.

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“…Yet, lab-based studies generally define word comprehension in a rather restricted sense. By requiring that infants look at, or even point to, something to demonstrate understanding, standard behavioral measures may be insufficient to capture infants’ emerging representations of words that may not have direct visual associates (Wojcik et al, 2022), or these measures may reflect behavior that is more expressive than referential (e.g., Dore, 1974). When presenting only two-dimensional static images of intended referents, highly controlled lab-based experiments generally lack the richness and diversity of infants’ real-world language environments (Nastase et al, 2020; Reuter et al, 2021; Tamis-LeMonda et al, 2017) and may therefore eliminate connections to socio-emotional, pragmatic, or contextual information and other cues that are useful for word recognition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving beyond “nouns in the lab”: Using naturalistic data to understand why infants’ first words include uh-oh and hi.

Casey,

Potter,

Lew-Williams

et al. 2023

Developmental Psychology

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Why do infants learn some words earlier than others? Many theories of early word learning focus on explaining how infants map labels onto concrete objects. However, words that are more abstract than object nouns, such as uh-oh, hi, more, up, and all-gone, are typically among the first to appear in infants' vocabularies. We combined a behavioral experiment with naturalistic observational research to explore how infants learn and represent this understudied category of high-frequency, routine-based non-nouns, which we term "everyday words." In Study 1, we found that a conventional eye-tracking measure of comprehension was insufficient to capture U.S.-based English-learning 10-to 16-month-old infants' emerging understanding of everyday words. In Study 2, we analyzed the visual and social scenes surrounding caregivers' and infants' use of everyday words in a naturalistic video corpus. This ecologically motivated research revealed that everyday words rarely co-occurred with consistent visual referents, making their early learnability difficult to reconcile with dominant word learning theories. Our findings instead point to complex patterns in the types of situations associated with everyday words that could contribute to their early representation in infants' vocabularies. By leveraging both experimental and observational methods, this investigation underscores the value of using naturalistic data to broaden theories of early learning. Public Significance StatementAcross languages, many of the first words that infants understand and say are routine-based, social words, such as uh-oh, hi, more, up, and all-gone. The current work leverages experimental and observational methods to investigate infants' early representations of these often-overlooked but foundational everyday words. We find that conventional approaches to testing early word comprehension via eye tracking conflict with the real-world contexts that surround everyday words. Specifically, early learning cannot just be a process of mapping labels onto consistent visual referents. This multimethod approach underscores the value of using naturalistic data to broaden theories of early learning.

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The map trap: Why and how word learning research should move beyond mapping

Cited by 16 publications

References 109 publications

Word learning in ASD: the sensorimotor, the perceptual and the symbolic

Word learning in ASD: the sensorimotor, the perceptual and the symbolic

Grounded language acquisition through the eyes and ears of a single child

Moving beyond “nouns in the lab”: Using naturalistic data to understand why infants’ first words include uh-oh and hi.

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