Suchergebnisse

AbstractRecent years have seen a flourishing of Natural Language Processing models that can mimic many aspects of human language fluency. These models harness a simple, decades‐old idea: It is possible to learn a lot about word meanings just from exposure to language, because words similar in meaning are used in language in similar ways. The successes of these models raise the intriguing possibility that exposure to word use in language also shapes the word knowledge that children amass during development. However, this possibility is strongly challenged by the fact that models use language input and learning mechanisms that may be unavailable to children. Across three studies, we found that unrealistically complex input and learning mechanisms are unnecessary. Instead, simple regularities of word use in children's language input that they have the capacity to learn can foster knowledge about word meanings. Thus, exposure to language may play a simple but powerful role in children's growing word knowledge. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/dT83dmMffnM.Research Highlights
Natural Language Processing (NLP) models can learn that words are similar in meaning from higher‐order statistical regularities of word use.
Unlike NLP models, infants and children may primarily learn only simple co‐occurrences between words.
We show that infants' and children's language input is rich in simple co‐occurrence that can support learning similarities in meaning between words.
We find that simple co‐occurrences can explain infants' and children's knowledge that words are similar in meaning.

AbstractAlthough identifying the referents of single words is often cited as a key challenge for getting word learning off the ground, it overlooks the fact that young learners consistently encounter words in the context of other words. How does this company help or hinder word learning? Prior investigations into early word learning from children's real‐world language input have yielded conflicting results, with some influential findings suggesting an advantage for words that keep a diverse company of other words, and others suggesting the opposite. Here, we sought to triangulate the source of this conflict, comparing different measures of diversity and approaches to controlling for correlated effects of word frequency across multiple languages. The results were striking: while different diversity measures on their own yielded conflicting results, once nonlinear relationships with word frequency were controlled, we found convergent evidence that contextual consistency supports early word learning.Research Highlights
The words children learn occur in a sea of other words. The company words keep ranges from highly variable to highly consistent and circumscribed.
Prior findings conflict over whether variability versus consistency helps early word learning.
Accounting for correlated effects of word frequency resolved the conflict across multiple languages.
Results reveal convergent evidence that consistency helps early word learning.