title: What does it take to learn a word?
abstract: Vocabulary learning is deceptively hard, but toddlers often make it look easy. Prior theories proposed that children's rapid acquisition of words is based on language-specific knowledge and constraints. In contrast, more recent work converges on the view that word learning proceeds via domain-general processes that are tuned to richly structured-not impoverished-input. We argue that new theoretical insights, coupled with methodological tools, have pushed the field toward an appreciation of simple, content-free processes working together as a system to support the acquisition of words. We illustrate this by considering three central phenomena of early language development: referential ambiguity, fast-mapping, and the vocabulary spurt. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1421. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1421 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.|DeLTA Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
authors.forename: Larissa K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Samuelson
authors.affiliation: DeLTA Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.|Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.|Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
authors.forename: Bob
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: McMurray
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D007858:Learning; D014825:Vocabulary