Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Conceptual information permeates word learning in infancy.

Amy E Booth1, Sandra R Waxman, Yi Ting Huang

  • 1Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208-3540, USA. a-booth@northwestern.edu

Developmental Psychology
|May 25, 2005
PubMed
Summary

Infants use conceptual knowledge to learn new words, not just object shape. This early word learning integrates both perceptual and conceptual information.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Language Sample Analysis in Bilingual Children: A Meta-Analysis of Diagnostic Accuracy.

American journal of speech-language pathology·2026
Same author

Distributional patterns in recast therapy do not systematically align with patterns in conversational data.

Journal of communication disorders·2025
Same author

The Feasibility of Remote Visual-World Eye-Tracking With Young Children.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2025
Same author

Understanding How Dialect Differences Shape How AAE-Speaking Children Process Sentences in Real-Time.

Seminars in speech and language·2025
Same author

Catching up with iCatcher: Comparing analyses of infant eye tracking based on trained human coders and iCatcher+ automated gaze coding software.

Behavior research methods·2025
Same author

Six-month-old infants use cross-modal synchrony to identify novel communicative signals.

Scientific reports·2024

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Linguistics

Background:

  • Early word learning is crucial for cognitive development.
  • The role of conceptual knowledge versus perceptual biases in infant word acquisition is debated.
  • Existing theories often emphasize the 'shape bias' as a primary driver of early word generalization.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether conceptual knowledge influences lexical acquisition in infancy.
  • To examine how infants generalize novel words based on object categorization (artifact vs. animate).
  • To challenge the notion that early word learning relies solely on perceptual feature-word correlations.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments involving 1.5- and 2-year-old infants.
  • Novel target objects were introduced with novel words.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Infants participated in yes-no and forced-choice tasks assessing word generalization.
  • Object targets were described as either artifacts or animates.

    • Main Results:

    • Infants' word extensions were mediated by the conceptual description of objects.
    • When targets were described as artifacts, infants generalized based on shape.
    • When targets were described as animates, infants generalized based on both shape and texture.
    • Similar patterns were observed in both 1.5- and 2-year-olds.

    Conclusions:

    • Conceptual knowledge significantly influences early lexical acquisition.
    • Word learning in infancy is not solely based on perceptual cues like shape.
    • Both perceptual and conceptual information are integral to infant word learning, challenging later emergence of biases.