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Updated: Jun 29, 2026
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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Sound symbolism facilitates early verb learning.
Mutsumi Imai1, Sotaro Kita, Miho Nagumo
1Department of Environmental Information, Keio University at Shonan-Fujisawa, Endo, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan. imai@sfc.keio.ac.jp
Cognition
|October 7, 2008
Summary
Young children learn verbs more easily when words have sound symbolism, a non-arbitrary link between sound and meaning. This study shows sound symbolism aids early verb acquisition in toddlers.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Developmental Psychology
Background:
- Sound symbolism describes words with a non-arbitrary sound-meaning relationship.
- This phenomenon is observed across languages and age groups.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if sound symbolism aids verb learning in 3-year-old children.
- To determine if children can generalize novel sound-symbolic verbs.
Main Methods:
- Created novel sound-symbolic and non-sound-symbolic verbs.
- Tested adult and child (2-3 years) judgments of sound-action matches.
- Administered a verb learning task to 3-year-old Japanese children using novel verbs.
Main Results:
- Adults and children confirmed sound-symbolic verbs matched actions.
- 3-year-olds failed to generalize novel non-sound-symbolic verbs.
- 3-year-olds successfully generalized novel sound-symbolic verbs.
Conclusions:
- Sound symbolism acts as iconic scaffolding, facilitating early verb acquisition.
- Children's sensitivity to sound symbolism supports vocabulary development.
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