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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm

Published on: April 28, 2016

Two-year-olds will name artifacts by their functions.

D G Kemler Nelson¹, R Russell, N Duke

¹Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, PA 19081-1397, USA. dkemler1@swarthmore.edu

Child Development

|December 7, 2000

Summary

Young children utilize object function when learning new artifact names. Two-year-olds successfully extend these names based on function, even when discovering it independently.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Development
Developmental Psychology
Linguistics

Background:

Children's early word learning is crucial for cognitive development.
Understanding how children categorize objects informs theories of language acquisition.
The role of functional information in early lexical categorization is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether young children incorporate functional information when learning and extending novel artifact names.
To determine if 2-year-olds can link an artifact's perceived structure to its function for naming.

Main Methods:

Three studies involved 112 two-year-old children learning novel names for novel artifacts.
Children were presented with artifacts whose functions were causally related to their physical structure.
Name generalization was assessed for new objects, with varying degrees of functional discovery by the children.

Main Results:

Children successfully generalized novel artifact names based on object function.
This functional generalization occurred even when children independently discovered the object's function.
The findings held true when all test objects possessed discernible functions.

Conclusions:

Two-year-olds actively use functional information in artifact naming and lexical categorization.
Children's ability to name by function depends on their capacity to relate appearance to function.
This study highlights the sophisticated understanding of cause-effect relationships in early word learning.