Relevance and early word learning

Several theorists have proposed that children may interpret an ambiguous word by attending to the dimension that is most relevant in the immediate discourse context. The current study offers a direct test of this hypothesis. Children aged 2;6 and 3;4 (N = 24 in each group) were presented with a novel object with an unusual shape and texture and were told 'This is a dacky one'. In the Shape-Relevant condition, two other objects' shapes were described before the target object was labelled ('This is a round one; this is a square one'). In the Texture-Relevant condition, two preceding objects' textures were described ('This is a smooth one; this is a fuzzy one'). Subsequent comprehension tests indicated that, in extending the novel adjective to other exemplars, children attended to the dimension that was most relevant to the preceding discourse context.