Too Much of a Good Thing: How Novelty Biases and Vocabulary Influence Known and Novel Referent Selection in 18‐Month‐Old Children and Associative Learning Models

Kucker, Sarah C.; McMurray, Bob; Samuelson, Larissa K.

doi:10.1111/cogs.12610

Cited by 34 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Thus, it appears a small boost to 24‐month‐old children's represented knowledge of the objects is sufficient to create a significant change in learning. Critically, when 18‐month‐old children were pre‐familiarized with the novel objects, their retention performance did not differ significantly to that from the prior study with no pre‐familiarization (33% retention without and 40% with pre‐familiarization; Kucker et al., ). In addition, pre‐familiarization with the novel stimuli did not decrease 18‐month‐old children's attraction to novelty on known‐name trials—they still chose the novel object when familiar items were requested.…”

Section: The Dynamic Balance Of Novelty and Knowledge In Referent Selmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…Data from Kucker et al., thus present an interesting contrast to that of Horst and Samuelson () and point to rapid changes in dynamic interactions between novelty biases and growing vocabulary knowledge between 18‐ and 24‐months‐of‐age (Houston‐Price et al., ; Mather, ; Mather & Plunkett, ). These data are even more interesting when considered in the context of a study showing that novelty influences the referent selection of 18‐ and 24‐month‐old children in similar ways.…”

Section: The Dynamic Balance Of Novelty and Knowledge In Referent Selmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Adaptions of McMurray et al. 's () computational model of referent selection and retention show that both possibilities can capture the empirical data (Kucker et al., ). However, because that model does not instantiate autonomous processes of visual exploration and attention, it is still unclear how the word learning system, as opposed to the modeler, comes to view novel and familiar stimuli as more or less salient.…”

Section: The Dynamic Balance Of Novelty and Knowledge In Referent Selmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Moving Word Learning to a Novel Space: A Dynamic Systems View of Referent Selection and Retention

2016

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Theories of cognitive development must address both the issue of how children bring their knowledge to bear on behavior in-the-moment, and how knowledge changes over time. We argue that seeking answers to these questions requires an appreciation of the dynamic nature of the developing system in its full, reciprocal complexity. We illustrate this dynamic complexity with results from two lines of research on early word learning. The first demonstrates how the child’s active engagement with objects and people supports referent selection via memories for what objects were previously seen in a cued location. The second set of results highlights changes in the role of novelty and attentional processes in referent selection and retention as children’s knowledge of words and objects grows. Together this work suggests understanding systems for perception, action, attention, and memory and their complex interaction is critical to understand word learning. We review recent literature that highlights the complex interactions between these processes in cognitive development and point to critical issues for future work.

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Section: The Dynamic Balance Of Novelty and Knowledge In Referent Selmentioning

confidence: 66%

Section: The Dynamic Balance Of Novelty and Knowledge In Referent Selmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: The Dynamic Balance Of Novelty and Knowledge In Referent Selmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Moving Word Learning to a Novel Space: A Dynamic Systems View of Referent Selection and Retention

2016

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“…Specific lesions to the other components could potentially affect the shape bias. Two recent papers that reported a weakened shape bias (Collisson, Grela, Spaulding, Rueckl, & Magnuson, ) and a strong novelty bias (Kucker, McMurray, & Samuelson, ) have suggested underlying mechanisms in line with this approach; the latter observed a preference for novel objects during referent selection tasks in two experiments and a set of simulations of young TD children (18 months of age). This novelty bias may be comparable to the label extension to novel objects in children with ASD documented in our study: remarkably, the authors suggested that the novelty bias they observed may result from unrefined lexicons in poorly organized associative networks of words and referents during early stages of vocabulary development.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Atypical shape bias and categorization in autism: Evidence from children and computational simulations

Tovar

Rodríguez-Granados

Arias‐Trejo

2019

Developmental Science

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The shape bias, a preference for mapping new word labels onto the shape rather than the color or texture of referents, has been postulated as a word‐learning mechanism. Previous research has shown deficits in the shape bias in children with autism even though they acquire sizeable lexicons. While previous explanations have suggested the atypical use of color for label extension in individuals with autism, we hypothesize an atypical mapping of novel labels to novel objects, regardless of the physical properties of the objects. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate this phenomenon in some individuals with autism, but the novelty of objects only partially explains their lack of shape bias. In a second experiment, we present a computational model that provides a developmental account of the shape bias in typically developing children and in those with autism. This model is based on theories of neurological dysfunctions in autism, and it integrates theoretical and empirical findings in the literature of categorization, word learning, and the shape bias. The model replicates the pattern of results of our first experiment and shows how individuals with autism are more likely to categorize experimental objects together on the basis of their novelty. It also provides insights into possible mechanisms by which children with autism learn new words, and why their word referents may be idiosyncratic. Our model highlights a developmental approach to autism that emphasizes deficient representations of categories underlying an impaired shape bias.

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“…Future research should also examine how processing of familiar versus novel labels impacts generalization performance for both monolinguals and bilinguals. Retention of novel word‐object labels is notoriously short‐lived when they are presented in the context of multiple new word‐object pairings (Kucker, McMurray, & Samuelson, ). Had labels been familiar (e.g., “rattle” or “animal”), rather than our nonsense labels, performance may have been enhanced.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actions speak louder than words: Differences in memory flexibility between monolingual and bilingual 18‐month‐olds

Barr

Rusnak

Brito

et al. 2019

Developmental Science

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Bilingual infants from 6‐ to 24‐months of age are more likely to generalize, flexibly reproducing actions on novel objects significantly more often than age‐matched monolingual infants are. In the current study, we examine whether the addition of novel verbal labels enhances memory generalization in a perceptually complex imitation task. We hypothesized that labels would provide an additional retrieval cue and aid memory generalization for bilingual infants. Specifically, we hypothesized that bilinguals might be more likely than monolinguals to map multiple perceptual features onto a novel label and therefore show enhanced generalization. Eighty‐seven 18‐month‐old monolingual and bilingual infants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions or a baseline control condition. In the experimental conditions, either no label or a novel label was added during demonstration and again at the beginning of the test session. After a 24‐hr delay, infants were tested with the same stimulus set to test cued recall and with a perceptually different but functionally equivalent stimulus set to test memory generalization. Bilinguals performed significantly above baseline on both cued recall and memory generalization in both experimental conditions, whereas monolinguals performed significantly above baseline only on cued recall in both experimental conditions. These findings show a difference between monolinguals and bilinguals in memory generalization and suggest that generalization differences between groups may arise from visual perceptual processing rather than linguistic processing. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/yXB4pM3fF2k

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Too Much of a Good Thing: How Novelty Biases and Vocabulary Influence Known and Novel Referent Selection in 18‐Month‐Old Children and Associative Learning Models

Cited by 34 publications

References 68 publications

Moving Word Learning to a Novel Space: A Dynamic Systems View of Referent Selection and Retention

Moving Word Learning to a Novel Space: A Dynamic Systems View of Referent Selection and Retention

Atypical shape bias and categorization in autism: Evidence from children and computational simulations

Actions speak louder than words: Differences in memory flexibility between monolingual and bilingual 18‐month‐olds

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