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Related Experiment Videos

Do word learners ignore ignorant speakers?

Mark A Sabbagh1, Sylwia D Wdowiak, Jennifer M Ottaway

  • 1Psychology Department, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6. sabbagh@psyc.queeensu.ca

Journal of Child Language
|December 23, 2003
PubMed
Summary

Children learning words prioritize knowledgeable speakers. When a speaker is ignorant, toddlers learn the word from a second speaker, demonstrating adaptive word-learning strategies.

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Children's word learning is influenced by speaker's knowledge.
  • Understanding how children adapt to varying speaker knowledge is crucial for developmental theories.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if hearing a word-referent link from an ignorant speaker impacts subsequent word learning from a knowledgeable speaker.
  • To explore children's ability to adapt word-learning based on perceived speaker knowledge states.

Main Methods:

  • Thirty-six 3-4 year olds participated in a word-learning task.
  • Children were exposed to novel word-referent pairings from either a knowledgeable or ignorant speaker, followed by a second speaker using the same word for a different referent.
  • A baseline condition involved an ignorant speaker not associating a word with a referent.

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Main Results:

  • Children selected the first speaker's referent when that speaker was knowledgeable.
  • Children selected the second speaker's referent when the first speaker was ignorant.
  • Experience with an ignorant speaker did not impede learning an alternative word-referent link from a subsequent speaker.

Conclusions:

  • Toddlers' word-learning strategies adapt based on the perceived knowledge of the speaker.
  • Children can effectively learn new words even after encountering an ignorant speaker, by shifting their focus to a more knowledgeable source.