Young children's referent selection is guided by novelty for both words and actions

Dysart, Erin L.; Mather, Emily; Riggs, Kevin J.

Abstract

Young children are biased to select novel, name-unknown objects as referents of novel labels (e.g., Markman, 1990) and similarly favour novel, action-unknown objects as referents of novel actions (Riggs, Mather, Hyde & Simpson, 2015). What process underlies these common behaviors? In the case of word learning, children may be driven by a novelty bias favouring novel objects as referents (Horst, Samuelson, Kucker & McMurray, 2011). Our study investigates this bias further by investigating whether novelty also affects children’s selection of novel objects when a new action is given. In a pre-exposure session, 40, three- and four-year-olds were shown eight novel objects for one minute. In subsequent referent selection trials children were shown two pre-exposed and one super-novel object and heard either a novel name or saw a novel action. The super-novel object was selected significantly more that the pre-exposed objects on both word and action trials. Our data add to the growing literature suggesting that an endogenous attentional bias to novelty plays a role in children’s referent selection and demonstrates further parallels between word and action learning.

Citation

Dysart, E. L., Mather, E., & Riggs, K. J. (2016). Young children's referent selection is guided by novelty for both words and actions. Journal of experimental child psychology, 146, 231-237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.01.003

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 1, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Feb 17, 2016
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jan 18, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 23, 2017
• Journal: Journal of experimental child psychology
• Print ISSN: 0022-0965
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 146
• Pages: 231-237
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.01.003
• Keywords: Referent selection, Novelty, Action-object mapping, Word-object mapping, Domain-general cognition, Word learning
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/384171
• Publisher URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096516000047
• Additional Information: Authors' accepted manuscript of article published in: Journal of experimental child psychology, 2016, v.146
• Contract Date: Nov 23, 2017