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Continuous developmental change explains discontinuities in word learning
Abdellah Fourtassi1, Sophie Regan1, Michael C Frank1
1Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Developmental Science
|July 13, 2020
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Developmental Psychology
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- Children's early phonetic discrimination skills do not always predict word learning.
- Previous theories suggested discontinuous developmental stages for word learning.
- Emerging evidence supports continuous development in phonetic encoding.
Purpose of the Study:
- To model word knowledge as graded and developmental change as precision improvement.
- To investigate if apparent cognitive discontinuities arise from continuous mechanisms.
- To test if referent visual similarity impacts word learning accuracy.
Main Methods:
- Developed a probabilistic computational model of graded word knowledge.
- Utilized precise testing methods to assess phonetic encoding in children and adults.
- Collected human data to validate model predictions.
Main Results:
- The probabilistic model successfully explained existing findings on phonetic discrimination and word learning.
- Model predictions regarding visual similarity modulating word learning were confirmed.
- Both preschool children and adults showed effects of referent visual similarity.
Conclusions:
- Apparent discontinuities in cognitive development may emerge from continuous underlying mechanisms.
- A graded representation of word knowledge offers a continuous developmental framework.
- Computational models are valuable tools for understanding cognitive development.
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