title: Temporal and spatial concepts in child language: conventional and configurational.
abstract: The purpose of this research was to study the temporal and spatial systems of child language. Configurational time/space refers to the location of events/objects relative to referent events/objects (e.g., before/after or across/along) and conventional time/space refers to the specification of cycles/directions and the measurement of duration/distance (e.g., winter/fall or North/South). The research was designed to determine how configurational and conventional notions of time and space emerge in the child's language. The average age of the children in the cross-sectional design was: 3;9, 6:7, and 8:7. The children received a comprehension test that required them to match a sentence with a picture. In general, configurational contrasts were easier to comprehend than conventional contrasts, and, within the configurational problems, location requiring a single referent was easier than location requiring multiple referents. There was no overall difference between temporal and spatial dimensions. The role of conceptual development was discussed within the context of a comparison between first and second language acquisition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, SUNY College, Fredonia, NY 14063, USA.
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Weist
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012016:Reference Values; D013028:Space Perception; D013998:Time Perception