Young children can extend motion verbs to point-light displays.
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.
Golinkoff
Roberta Michnick
RM
School of Education, University of Delaware, Newark 19716-2922, USA. roberta@udel.edu
Chung
He Len
HL
Hirsh-Pasek
Kathy
K
Liu
Jing
J
Bertenthal
Bennett I
BI
Brand
Rebecca
R
Maguire
Mandy J
MJ
Hennon
Elizabeth
E
D002675:Child, Preschool; D016288:Computer Terminals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement; D014743:Videotape Recording; D014825:Vocabulary