title: Compositionality and statistics in adjective acquisition: 4-year-olds interpret tall and short based on the size distributions of novel noun referents.
abstract: Four experiments investigated 4-year-olds' understanding of adjective-noun compositionality and their sensitivity to statistics when interpreting scalar adjectives. In Experiments 1 and 2, children selected tall and short items from 9 novel objects called pimwits (1-9 in. in height) or from this array plus 4 taller or shorter distractor objects of the same kind. Changing the height distributions of the sets shifted children's tall and short judgments. However, when distractors differed in name and surface features from targets, in Experiment 3, judgments did not shift. In Experiment 4, dissimilar distractors did affect judgments when they received the same name as targets. It is concluded that 4-year-olds deploy a compositional semantics that is sensitive to statistics and mediated by linguistic labels.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 4020 Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. david.barner@utoronto.ca
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Barner
authors.forename: Jesse
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Snedeker
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002657:Child Development; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D003405:Creativity; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D007804:Language Development; D008128:Logic; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011581:Psychological Tests; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012107:Research Design; D012660:Semantics; D014706:Verbal Learning