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Updated: Apr 7, 2026
05:15
The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
Published on: February 19, 2018
11.5K
Trading Spaces: Carving Up Events for Learning Language.
Tilbe Göksun1, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek2, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff3
1Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA tgoksun@temple.edu.
Summary
Infants learn relational terms by connecting language to their understanding of events. They adapt general spatial concepts to match the specific language they acquire.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Relational terms (verbs, prepositions) are crucial for language acquisition.
- Infants must link linguistic terms to nonlinguistic event components (e.g., path, manner, figure-ground).
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the interaction between language learning and infants' conceptualization of spatial event components.
- To propose that infants' initial understanding of events is language-general and becomes language-specific.
Main Methods:
- This is a review article, synthesizing existing research on infant language development and event perception.
- Focuses on the conceptual underpinnings of acquiring relational terms.
Main Results:
- Infants possess language-general nonlinguistic constructs for events.
- These constructs are gradually refined to align with the specific relational terms of their native language.
Conclusions:
- Infants "trade spaces" by adjusting their sensitivity to certain relational distinctions based on their native language.
- This process highlights the dynamic interplay between conceptual development and linguistic input in early language acquisition.
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