Three- to Four-Year-Old Children Rapidly Adapt Their Predictions and Use Them to Learn Novel Word Meanings

Child Development
Naomi HavronAnne Christophe

Abstract

Adults create and update predictions about what speakers will say next. This study asks whether prediction can drive language acquisition, by testing whether 3- to 4-year-old children (n = 45) adapt to recent information when learning novel words. The study used a syntactic context which can precede both nouns and verbs to manipulate children's predictions about what syntactic category will follow. Children for whom the syntactic context predicted verbs were more likely to infer that a novel word appearing in this context referred to an action, than children for whom it predicted nouns. This suggests that children make rapid changes to their predictions, and use this information to learn novel information, supporting the role of prediction in language acquisition.

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Citations

Aug 13, 2020·Developmental Science·Naomi HavronAnne Christophe
Mar 16, 2019·Frontiers in Psychology·Alex de CarvalhoAnne Christophe
Aug 29, 2020·Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies·Naomi HavronSho Tsuji
Jul 13, 2021·Language, Cognition and Neuroscience·Tracy ReuterCasey Lew-Williams
Aug 14, 2020·Journal of Experimental Child Psychology·Marion BerettiAnne Christophe

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