Bilingual and monolingual children attend to different cues when learning new words
The way in which children learn language can vary depending on their language environment. Previous work suggests that bilingual children may be more sensitive to pragmatic cues from a speaker when learning new words than monolingual children are. On the other hand, monolingual children may rely mor...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2012-05-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00155/full |
| _version_ | 1811304755722452992 |
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| author | Eliana eColunga Chandra eBrojde Sabeen eAhmed |
| author_facet | Eliana eColunga Chandra eBrojde Sabeen eAhmed |
| author_sort | Eliana eColunga |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The way in which children learn language can vary depending on their language environment. Previous work suggests that bilingual children may be more sensitive to pragmatic cues from a speaker when learning new words than monolingual children are. On the other hand, monolingual children may rely more heavily on object properties than bilingual children do. In this study we manipulate these two sources of information within the same paradigm, using eye gaze as a pragmatic cue and similarity along different dimensions as an object cue. In the crucial condition, object and pragmatic cues were inconsistent with each other. Our results showed that in this ambiguous condition monolingual children attend more to object property cues whereas bilingual children attend more to pragmatic cues. Control conditions showed that monolingual children were sensitive to eye gaze and bilingual children were sensitive to similarity by shape; it was only when the cues were inconsistent that children’s preference for one or the other cue was apparent. Our results suggest that children learn to weigh different cues depending on their relative informativeness in their environment |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T08:13:01Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ea3036586c6d42349e69c312c907042f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T08:13:01Z |
| publishDate | 2012-05-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-ea3036586c6d42349e69c312c907042f2022-12-22T02:54:55ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782012-05-01310.3389/fpsyg.2012.0015521004Bilingual and monolingual children attend to different cues when learning new wordsEliana eColunga0Chandra eBrojde1Sabeen eAhmed2University of Colorado BoulderUniversity of Colorado BoulderUniversity of Colorado BoulderThe way in which children learn language can vary depending on their language environment. Previous work suggests that bilingual children may be more sensitive to pragmatic cues from a speaker when learning new words than monolingual children are. On the other hand, monolingual children may rely more heavily on object properties than bilingual children do. In this study we manipulate these two sources of information within the same paradigm, using eye gaze as a pragmatic cue and similarity along different dimensions as an object cue. In the crucial condition, object and pragmatic cues were inconsistent with each other. Our results showed that in this ambiguous condition monolingual children attend more to object property cues whereas bilingual children attend more to pragmatic cues. Control conditions showed that monolingual children were sensitive to eye gaze and bilingual children were sensitive to similarity by shape; it was only when the cues were inconsistent that children’s preference for one or the other cue was apparent. Our results suggest that children learn to weigh different cues depending on their relative informativeness in their environmenthttp://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00155/fullbilingualismword learninglanguage development |
| spellingShingle | Eliana eColunga Chandra eBrojde Sabeen eAhmed Bilingual and monolingual children attend to different cues when learning new words Frontiers in Psychology bilingualism word learning language development |
| title | Bilingual and monolingual children attend to different cues when learning new words |
| title_full | Bilingual and monolingual children attend to different cues when learning new words |
| title_fullStr | Bilingual and monolingual children attend to different cues when learning new words |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bilingual and monolingual children attend to different cues when learning new words |
| title_short | Bilingual and monolingual children attend to different cues when learning new words |
| title_sort | bilingual and monolingual children attend to different cues when learning new words |
| topic | bilingualism word learning language development |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00155/full |
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