How young children integrate information sources to infer the meaning of words
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4636627 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maria Bohn (0000-0001-6006-1348, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, corresponding author), Michael Henry Tessler (0000-0003-3945-0239, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Megan Merrick (0000-0002-9890-7924, Stanford University), Michael C Frank (0000-0002-7551-4378, Stanford University) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 1046-1054 |
| Publication date | 2021-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Nature Human Behaviour (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2397-3374 • E-ISSN: 2397-3374 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1038/s41562-021-01145-1 |
| PMID | 34211148 |
| OpenAlex | W3146622096 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 73 |
Before formal education begins, children typically acquire a vocabulary of thousands of words. This learning process requires the use of many different information sources in their social environment, including their current state of knowledge and the context in which they hear words used. How is this information integrated? We specify a developmental model according to which children consider information sources in an age-specific way and integrate them via Bayesian inference. This model accurately predicted 2-5-year-old children's word learning across a range of experimental conditions in which they had to integrate three information sources. Model comparison suggests that the central locus of development is an increased sensitivity to individual information sources, rather than changes in integration ability. This work presents a developmental theory of information integration during language learning and illustrates how formal models can be used to make a quantitative test of the predictive and explanatory power of competing theories
Bayesian inference · Bayesian probability · Cognitive psychology · Epistemology · Explanatory power · Inference · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Predictive power · Vocabulary · Child and Animal Learning Development · Computer Science · Language Development and Disorders · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Artificial Intelligence
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Modeling Individual Differences in Children’s Information Integration During Pragmatic Word Learning
A Pragmatic Account of the Weak Evidence Effect
Pragmatics as Social Inference About Intentional Action
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Preschoolers modulate contrastive inferences during online language comprehension
The Rational Speech Act Framework
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What Young Children’s Processing and Understanding of Compound Words Can Tell Us About Their Pragmatic Development
Knowledge, the concept know, and the word know
Learning Loopholes
Combining statistics
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Using Language
How Children Learn the Meanings of Words
Bayesian Cognitive Modeling
First Language Acquisition
Pragmatic Language Interpretation as Probabilistic Inference
The development of a word-learning strategy
The effects of common ground and perspective on domains of referential interpretation
Variability in Early Communicative Development
Choosing Prediction Over Explanation in Psychology
Addressing the theory crisis in psychology
Integration of Visual and Linguistic Information in Spoken Language Comprehension
Evidence of Perspective-Taking Constraints in Children's On-Line Reference Resolution
The persistent sampling bias in developmental psychology
The Naïve Utility Calculus
Children's use of mutual exclusivity to constrain the meanings of words
Age-of-acquisition ratings for 30,000 English words
To Explain or to Predict?
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Word learning emerges from the interaction of online referent selection and slow associative learning.
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Words are not enough
Preschoolers' word mapping
The Evolution of Language
Origins of Human Communication
Word learning as Bayesian inference
Relevance
Integration of Syntactic and Semantic Information in Predictive Processing
Young children consider the expected utility of others' learning to decide what to teach
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The Language Animal
| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,6 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 13 |