When does an ostrich become a bird? The role of typicality in early word comprehension.

Which objects and animals are children willing to accept as referents for words they know? To answer this question, the authors assessed early word comprehension using the preferential looking task. Children were shown 2 stimuli side by side (a target and a distractor) and heard the target stimulus...

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Main Authors: Meints, K, Plunkett, K, Harris, P
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 1999
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author Meints, K
Plunkett, K
Harris, P
author_facet Meints, K
Plunkett, K
Harris, P
author_sort Meints, K
collection OXFORD
description Which objects and animals are children willing to accept as referents for words they know? To answer this question, the authors assessed early word comprehension using the preferential looking task. Children were shown 2 stimuli side by side (a target and a distractor) and heard the target stimulus named. The target stimulus was either a typical or an atypical exemplar of the named category. It was predicted that children first connect typical examples with the target name and broaden the extension of the name as they get older to include less typical examples. Experiment 1 shows that when targets are named, 12-month-olds display an increase in target looking for typical but not atypical targets whereas 24-month-olds display an increase for both. Experiment 2 shows that 18-month-olds display a pattern similar to that of 24-month-olds. Implications for the early development of word comprehension are discussed.
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spelling oxford-uuid:94c52d19-cc3c-4aec-8644-81e8a4070e592022-03-26T23:41:44ZWhen does an ostrich become a bird? The role of typicality in early word comprehension.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:94c52d19-cc3c-4aec-8644-81e8a4070e59EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford1999Meints, KPlunkett, KHarris, PWhich objects and animals are children willing to accept as referents for words they know? To answer this question, the authors assessed early word comprehension using the preferential looking task. Children were shown 2 stimuli side by side (a target and a distractor) and heard the target stimulus named. The target stimulus was either a typical or an atypical exemplar of the named category. It was predicted that children first connect typical examples with the target name and broaden the extension of the name as they get older to include less typical examples. Experiment 1 shows that when targets are named, 12-month-olds display an increase in target looking for typical but not atypical targets whereas 24-month-olds display an increase for both. Experiment 2 shows that 18-month-olds display a pattern similar to that of 24-month-olds. Implications for the early development of word comprehension are discussed.
spellingShingle Meints, K
Plunkett, K
Harris, P
When does an ostrich become a bird? The role of typicality in early word comprehension.
title When does an ostrich become a bird? The role of typicality in early word comprehension.
title_full When does an ostrich become a bird? The role of typicality in early word comprehension.
title_fullStr When does an ostrich become a bird? The role of typicality in early word comprehension.
title_full_unstemmed When does an ostrich become a bird? The role of typicality in early word comprehension.
title_short When does an ostrich become a bird? The role of typicality in early word comprehension.
title_sort when does an ostrich become a bird the role of typicality in early word comprehension
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