The Influence of Exemplar Variability on Young Children's Construal of Verb Meaning

Autor/inn/en	Ma, Weiyi; Luo, Rufan; Golinkoff, Roberta; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy
Titel	The Influence of Exemplar Variability on Young Children's Construal of Verb Meaning
Quelle	In: Language Learning and Development, 19 (2023) 3, S.249-274 (26 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy) Weitere Informationen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1547-5441
DOI	10.1080/15475441.2022.2060834
Schlagwörter	Verbs; Language Acquisition; English; Cognitive Mapping; Preschool Children; Learning Processes; Individual Differences; Decision Making; Task Analysis; Visual Stimuli; Graduate Students; Undergraduate Students; Semantics; Comparative Analysis; Delaware + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Sprachaneignung; Spracherwerb; English language; Englisch; Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Learning process; Lernprozess; Individueller Unterschied; Decision-making; Entscheidungsfindung; Aufgabenanalyse; Graduate Study; Student; Students; Aufbaustudium; Graduiertenstudium; Hauptstudium; Studentin; Semantik
Abstract	Verbs serve as the architectural centerpiece of sentences, making verb learning pivotal for language acquisition. Verb learning requires both the formation of a verb-action mapping and the abstraction of relations between an object and its action. Two competing positions have been proposed to explain the process of verb learning: (a) seeing a highly variable range of exemplars allows children to detect and abstract the commonalities across actions--the action invariants; and (b) seeing a less variable range of exemplars enables children to focus on and extract the action invariants. Using manner--a major component of verb meaning in English--as a test case, this study addressed this debate by examining the influence of manner variability on the ability to fast-map new verbs and extend them to novel exemplars in 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old English-speaking children. Results contribute to this debate by showing that high manner variability hindered fast-mapping but facilitated extension to manner variations in the 2- and 3-year-olds. Thus, high exemplar variability may affect verb fast-mapping and extension differently. Furthermore, manner variability did not affect 4-year-olds' (or adults') fast-mapping or extension, suggesting that the influence of exemplar variability on verb learning attenuates with age. Finally, manner variability did not affect agent or object extension, revealing a component-specific effect of exemplar variability on verb extension. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01