Randomized trial examines how children learn word meanings using consistent elements in naming contexts, suggesting insights into lexical development.
Key Points
The study tests how children learn the meanings of new words by identifying consistent features across different contexts.
Participants included 72 children aged 2 to 4 years, equally divided into three age groups of 24 each.
Children were shown novel objects that varied by shape and texture, and introduced to a target object with a novel label.
The experiment included two conditions: Shape and Texture, to assess word learning strategies in varying contexts.
Children in all age groups successfully extended the novel adjective to other objects by focusing on the consistent shape or texture element across different contexts.
Findings show that children's word learning is influenced by the stable characteristics of objects presented in naming situations.