The principles of conventionality and contrast in word learning: an empirical examination.
In Study 1, 4-year-olds avoided 2 names for an object when exposed to a common or a proper noun in a puppet's presence or to a common noun in a puppet's absence, but not when exposed to a proper noun in a puppet's absence. In Study 2, 3-year-olds avoided 2 names for an object when the requester for the referent of a second label in a different language was bilingual and present during naming, but not when the speaker was bilingual but absent or monolingual. Study 3 followed up on the results of the first 2 studies. When children could assume that the puppet knew the name the experimenter used, they inferred that the puppet's use of a different name implied a different referential intent.
Diesendruck
Gil
G
Department of Psychology and the Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel. dieseng@mail.biu.ac.il
D002675:Child, Preschool; D036262:Empirical Research; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014825:Vocabulary