TY - JOUR

T1 - Interactions between statistical and semantic information in infant language development

AU - Lany, J.

AU - Saffran, J.R.

PY - 2011/9/30

Y1 - 2011/9/30

N2 - Infants can use statistical regularities to form rudimentary word categories (e.g. noun, verb), and to learn the meanings common to words from those categories. Using an artificial language methodology, we probed the mechanisms by which two types of statistical cues (distributional and phonological regularities) affect word learning. Because linking distributional cues vs. phonological information to semantics make different computational demands on learners, we also tested whether their use is related to language proficiency. We found that 22-month-old infants with smaller vocabularies generalized using phonological cues; however, infants with larger vocabularies showed the opposite pattern of results, generalizing based on distributional cues. These findings suggest that both phonological and distributional cues marking word categories promote early word learning. Moreover, while correlations between these cues are important to forming word categories, we found infants’ weighting of these cues in subsequent word-learning tasks changes over the course of early language development.

AB - Infants can use statistical regularities to form rudimentary word categories (e.g. noun, verb), and to learn the meanings common to words from those categories. Using an artificial language methodology, we probed the mechanisms by which two types of statistical cues (distributional and phonological regularities) affect word learning. Because linking distributional cues vs. phonological information to semantics make different computational demands on learners, we also tested whether their use is related to language proficiency. We found that 22-month-old infants with smaller vocabularies generalized using phonological cues; however, infants with larger vocabularies showed the opposite pattern of results, generalizing based on distributional cues. These findings suggest that both phonological and distributional cues marking word categories promote early word learning. Moreover, while correlations between these cues are important to forming word categories, we found infants’ weighting of these cues in subsequent word-learning tasks changes over the course of early language development.

U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01073.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01073.x

M3 - Journal article

VL - 14

SP - 1207

EP - 1219

JO - Developmental Science

JF - Developmental Science

SN - 1363-755X

IS - 5

ER -