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All Outputs (18)

The role of systematicity in early referent selection (2023)
Journal Article
Sia, M. Y., Mather, E., Crocker, M. W., & Mani, N. (in press). The role of systematicity in early referent selection. Developmental Science, Article e13444. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13444

Previous studies showed that word learning is affected by children's existing knowledge. For instance, knowledge of semantic category aids word learning, whereas a dense phonological neighbourhood impedes learning of similar-sounding words. Here, we... Read More about The role of systematicity in early referent selection.

Developmental psychologists should care about measurement precision (2022)
Journal Article
Lindsay, S., & Mather, E. (in press). Developmental psychologists should care about measurement precision. Infant and Child Development, Article e2321. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2321

In a wide ranging article in this journal, Byers-Heinlein et al. (2022) make a persuasive case for paying close attention to reliability in developmental research. They focus on measurement reliability, which indexes how well individuals can be ranke... Read More about Developmental psychologists should care about measurement precision.

Why would a special FM process exist in adults, when it does not appear to exist in children? (2019)
Journal Article
O’Connor, R. J., Lindsay, S., Mather, E., & Riggs, K. J. (2019). Why would a special FM process exist in adults, when it does not appear to exist in children?. Cognitive neuroscience, 10(4), 221-222. https://doi.org/10.1080/17588928.2019.1574260

Cooper Greve, and Henson (this issue)  caution restraint before accepting that a fast mapping (FM) process exists in adults. We welcome this, but would also add that the original rationale for studying FM in adults is not currently supported by devel... Read More about Why would a special FM process exist in adults, when it does not appear to exist in children?.

Reprint of “Young children's referent selection is guided by novelty for both words and actions” (2016)
Journal Article
Dysart, E. L., Mather, E., & Riggs, K. J. (2016). Reprint of “Young children's referent selection is guided by novelty for both words and actions”. Journal of experimental child psychology, 151, 33-39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.08.003

This article is a reprint of a previously published article. For citation purposes, please use the original publication details; Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Volume 146, June 2016, Pages 231–237.

Get your facts right : preschoolers systematically extend both object names and category-relevant facts (2016)
Journal Article
Holland, A. K., Mather, E., Simpson, A., & Riggs, K. J. (2016). Get your facts right : preschoolers systematically extend both object names and category-relevant facts. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(JUL), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01064

There is an ongoing debate over the extent to which language development shares common processing mechanisms with other domains of learning. It is well-established that toddlers will systematically extend object labels to similarly-shaped category ex... Read More about Get your facts right : preschoolers systematically extend both object names and category-relevant facts.

Young children's referent selection is guided by novelty for both words and actions (2016)
Journal Article
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

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 un... Read More about Young children's referent selection is guided by novelty for both words and actions.

Parallels between action-object mapping and word-object mapping in young children (2015)
Journal Article
Riggs, K. J., Mather, E., Hyde, G., & Simpson, A. (2016). Parallels between action-object mapping and word-object mapping in young children. Cognitive science, 40(4), 992-1006. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12262

© 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. Across a series of four experiments with 3- to 4-year-olds we demonstrate how cognitive mechanisms supporting noun learning extend to the mapping of actions to objects. In Experiment 1 (n = 61) the demonstration... Read More about Parallels between action-object mapping and word-object mapping in young children.

Priming by relational integration in perceptual identification and Stroop colour naming (2013)
Journal Article
Mather, E., Estes, Z., & Jones, L. L. (2014). Priming by relational integration in perceptual identification and Stroop colour naming. Journal of Memory and Language, 71(1), 57-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2013.10.004

Integrative priming is the facilitated recognition of a target word following a prime word with which it can be combined to produce a sub-type of the target (e.g., a lake bird is a type of bird). Such priming occurs even in the absence of lexical ass... Read More about Priming by relational integration in perceptual identification and Stroop colour naming.

Novelty, attention, and challenges for developmental psychology (2013)
Journal Article
Mather, E. (2013). Novelty, attention, and challenges for developmental psychology. Frontiers in Psychology, 4(AUG), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00491

In this brief essay, I seek to demonstrate the significance of exploratory behavior for understanding cognitive development. Historically, organisms were thought to act solely in the service of achieving biologically significant goals, such as satisf... Read More about Novelty, attention, and challenges for developmental psychology.

Bootstrapping the early lexicon: how do children use old knowledge to create new meanings? (2013)
Journal Article
Mather, E. (2013). Bootstrapping the early lexicon: how do children use old knowledge to create new meanings?. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 96. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00096

Compared to other aspects of language development, such as acquiring grammar, we perhaps take for granted the complexity of building a lexicon. More than 50 years ago the philosopher W.V.O. Quine provided a now famous example of what makes word learn... Read More about Bootstrapping the early lexicon: how do children use old knowledge to create new meanings?.

The role of novelty in early word learning (2012)
Journal Article
Mather, E., & Plunkett, K. (2012). The role of novelty in early word learning. Cognitive science, 36(7), 1157-1177. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01239.x

What mechanism implements the mutual exclusivity bias to map novel labels to objects without names? Prominent theoretical accounts of mutual exclusivity (e.g., Markman, 1989, 1990) propose that infants are guided by their knowledge of object names. H... Read More about The role of novelty in early word learning.

The impact of novel labels on visual processing during infancy (2010)
Journal Article
Mather, E., Schafer, G., & Houston-Price, C. (2011). The impact of novel labels on visual processing during infancy. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 29(4), 783-805. https://doi.org/10.1348/2044-835X.002008

The impact of novel labels on visual processing was investigated across two experiments with infants aged between 9 and 21 months. Infants viewed pairs of images across a series of preferential looking trials. On each trial, one image was novel, and... Read More about The impact of novel labels on visual processing during infancy.

Mutual exclusivity and phonological novelty constrain word learning at 16 months (2010)
Journal Article
Mather, E., & Plunkett, K. (2011). Mutual exclusivity and phonological novelty constrain word learning at 16 months. Journal of child language, 38(5), 933-950. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000910000401

Studies report that infants as young as 1 ; 3 to 1 ; 5 will seek out a novel object in response to hearing a novel label (e.g. Halberda, 2003; Markman, Wasow & Hansen, 2003). This behaviour is commonly known as the 'mutual exclusivity' response (Ma... Read More about Mutual exclusivity and phonological novelty constrain word learning at 16 months.

Novel labels support 10-month-olds' attention to novel objects (2010)
Journal Article
Mather, E., & Plunkett, K. (2010). Novel labels support 10-month-olds' attention to novel objects. Journal of experimental child psychology, 105(3), 232-242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2009.11.004

What is the source of the mutual exclusivity bias whereby infants map novel labels onto novel objects? In an intermodal preferential looking task, we found that novel labels support 10-month-olds' attention to a novel object over a familiar object. I... Read More about Novel labels support 10-month-olds' attention to novel objects.

Discrepancy between parental reports of infants' receptive vocabulary and infants' behaviour in a preferential looking task (2007)
Journal Article
Houston-Price, C., Mather, E., & Sakkalou, E. (2007). Discrepancy between parental reports of infants' receptive vocabulary and infants' behaviour in a preferential looking task. Journal of child language, 34(4), 701-724. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000907008124

Two experiments are described which explore the relationship between parental reports of infants' receptive vocabularies at 1;6 (Experiment 1a) or 1;3, 1;6 and 1;9. (Experiment 1b) and the comprehension infants demonstrated in a preferential looking... Read More about Discrepancy between parental reports of infants' receptive vocabulary and infants' behaviour in a preferential looking task.

Learning words over time : the role of stimulus repetition in mutual exclusivity
Journal Article
Mather, E., & Plunkett, K. Learning words over time : the role of stimulus repetition in mutual exclusivity. Infancy, 14(1), 60-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/15250000802569702

During the second year of life, infants develop a preference to attach novel labels to novel objects. This behavior is commonly known as "mutual exclusivity" (Markman, 1989). In an intermodal preferential looking experiment with 19.5- and 22.5-month-... Read More about Learning words over time : the role of stimulus repetition in mutual exclusivity.

Same items, different order : effects of temporal variability on infant categorization
Journal Article
Mather, E., & Plunkett, K. Same items, different order : effects of temporal variability on infant categorization. Cognition, 119(3), 438-447. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.02.008

How does variability between members of a category influence infants' category learning? We explore the impact of the order in which different items are sampled on category formation. Two groups of 10-months-olds were presented with a series of exemp... Read More about Same items, different order : effects of temporal variability on infant categorization.