Abstract words are hard to acquire; Does social relevance help?

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Linguistics
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Theories suggest social relevance aids abstract word acquisition.
• Empirical evidence directly testing this link is limited.
• Understanding abstract word learning is crucial for developmental theories.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if children acquire more social abstract words earlier than less social abstract words.
• To examine the interplay of word socialness, concreteness, valence, and frequency on age of acquisition.
• To test the hypothesis that socialness uniquely facilitates abstract word learning.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a novel quantification of word socialness.
• Analyzed 4,047 words with ratings for socialness, concreteness, and valence.
• Related these word properties to established age of acquisition (AoA) data and test-based AoA.

Main Results:

• Word socialness significantly predicted earlier age of acquisition, especially for abstract words.
• The benefit of socialness for abstract words decreased when emotional valence was considered.
• A significant interaction between socialness and valence indicated early acquisition of highly social and emotional words.

Conclusions:

• Socialness is a key factor in facilitating abstract word acquisition in children.
• Emotional valence moderates the impact of socialness on word learning.
• Further research into social concept subtypes is necessary to fully understand their role in word acquisition.