title: Young children can extend motion verbs to point-light displays.
abstract: In the first study using point-light displays (lights corresponding to the joints of the human body) to examine children's understanding of verbs, 3-year-olds were tested to see if they could perceive familiar actions that corresponded to motion verbs (e.g., walking). Experiment 1 showed that children could extend familiar motion verbs (e.g., walking and dancing) to videotaped point-light actions shown in the intermodal preferential looking paradigm. Children watched the action that matched the requested verb significantly more than they watched the action that did not match the verb. In Experiment 2, the findings of Experiment 1 were validated by having children spontaneously produce verbs for these actions. The use of point-light displays may illuminate the factors that contribute to verb learning.
authors.affiliation: School of Education, University of Delaware, Newark 19716-2922, USA. roberta@udel.edu
authors.forename: Roberta Michnick
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Golinkoff
authors.forename: He Len
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Kathy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hirsh-Pasek
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Bennett I
authors.initials: BI
authors.lastname: Bertenthal
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brand
authors.forename: Mandy J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Maguire
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hennon
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D016288:Computer Terminals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement; D014743:Videotape Recording; D014825:Vocabulary