Mechanisms Supporting Experience-Driven Changes in Semantic Knowledge

支持经验驱动的语义知识变化的机制

• 批准号: 1918259
• 负责人: Catarina Vales
• 金额: $ 61.48万
• 依托单位: Carnegie-Mellon University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-08-01 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1918259&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Mechanisms; Supporting; Experience; Driven; Changes

Human knowledge about the world is structured in semantic networks in which concepts are linked by relevant relations. This semantic structure is thought to be crucially important for many day-to-day activities, including learning in formal and informal settings, because it allows access to and use of stored knowledge across many different contexts. Prior studies suggest that there are marked individual differences in semantic structure based on factors such as age and expertise in specific domains. However, paucity of methods appropriate for studying semantic structure in young children makes it challenging to gain insight into changes in semantic structure with experience and learning during several key developmental periods, including the preschool years and transition into formal schooling. Using recent advances in the measurement of structured semantic knowledge in young children, this project will further our understanding of how learning and experience in real-world settings (such as a summer camp at a local botanical garden) promote rapid changes in children's semantic networks. The results of this project will have implications for our understanding of many cognitive processes thought to rely on structured semantic knowledge, including memory encoding and retrieval, attention, reading comprehension, and learning in formal and informal settings. Therefore, the results of this project have the potential to provide novel evidence pointing to the importance of enrichment experiences (such as field trips and summer camps) to children's academic achievement. The findings from this project will be disseminated to academic audiences and also to parents and educators in the community. Therefore, this project will provide opportunities to engage members of the public in conversations about improving the scientific literacy of children. The goals of this project are (1) to develop and validate developmentally-appropriate methods to study semantic structure in children, (2) to directly test theoretically-driven predictions about the learning mechanisms promoting changes in semantic structure in a real-world setting, and (3) to examine how changes in semantic structure promote changes in inferential comprehension, a cognitive process that is a component of reading comprehension. In Study 1, the researchers will develop and validate new methods to study semantic structure in children aged 4-9 years, and in so doing will examine how changes in semantic structure across a number of early acquired domains of knowledge (e.g., animals, clothes, foods) are related to changes in the ability to make inferences in those domains. In Studies 2 and 3, the research team will partner with a local botanical garden to directly test how different aspects of children's informal learning experiences contribute to changes in semantic structure and thereby affect children's inferential comprehension. The results of this project will provide the research community with new methods of studying semantic networks in children and will provide new insights into the importance of enrichment experiences for semantic development, including aspects of semantic development that are relevant for school success.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

人类关于世界的知识是以语义网络的形式构建的，在语义网络中，概念通过相关关系联系在一起。这种语义结构被认为对许多日常活动至关重要，包括在正式和非正式环境中的学习，因为它允许在许多不同的背景下访问和使用存储的知识。以往的研究表明，基于年龄和特定领域的专业知识等因素，语义结构存在显着的个体差异。然而，缺乏适当的方法来研究幼儿的语义结构，这使得它具有挑战性的洞察语义结构的变化与经验和学习在几个关键的发展时期，包括学前教育和过渡到正规学校教育。利用最新的进展，在幼儿结构化语义知识的测量，这个项目将进一步了解如何学习和经验，在现实世界的设置（如在当地植物园的夏令营）促进儿童的语义网络的快速变化。这个项目的结果将对我们理解许多认知过程产生影响，这些认知过程被认为依赖于结构化的语义知识，包括记忆编码和提取、注意力、阅读理解以及正式和非正式环境中的学习。因此，该项目的结果有可能提供新的证据，指出丰富经验（如实地考察和夏令营）对儿童学业成绩的重要性。该项目的调查结果将分发给学术界以及社区的家长和教育工作者。因此，该项目将提供机会，让公众参与关于提高儿童科学素养的对话。该项目的目标是（1）开发和验证适合儿童发展的语义结构研究方法，（2）直接测试理论驱动的预测，即在现实世界中促进语义结构变化的学习机制，以及（3）研究语义结构的变化如何促进推理理解的变化，作为阅读理解组成部分的认知过程。在研究1中，研究人员将开发和验证研究4-9岁儿童语义结构的新方法，并在此过程中研究语义结构如何在许多早期获得的知识领域（例如，动物、衣服、食物）与在这些领域进行推理的能力的变化有关。在研究2和3中，研究小组将与当地的植物园合作，直接测试儿童非正式学习经验的不同方面如何有助于语义结构的变化，从而影响儿童的推理理解。该项目的结果将为研究界提供研究儿童语义网络的新方法，并将为丰富经验对语义发展的重要性提供新的见解，包括与学校成功相关的语义发展方面。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响进行评估来支持审查标准。

项目成果

Experience‐Driven Semantic Differentiation: Effects of a Naturalistic Experience on Within‐and Across‐Domain Differentiation in Children

经验驱动的语义分化：自然体验对儿童内部和跨领域分化的影响

• DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13369
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Child development
• 影响因子: 4.6
• 作者: Vales, C;States, S.L;Fisher, A.V.
• 通讯作者: Fisher, A.V.

The Emergence of Richly Organized Semantic Knowledge from Simple Statistics: A Synthetic Review.

从简单统计中产生丰富组织的语义知识：综合评论。

• DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2021.100949
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Developmental review : DR
• 作者: Unger,Layla;Fisher,AnnaV
• 通讯作者: Fisher,AnnaV

The Role of Co‐Occurrence Statistics in Developing Semantic Knowledge

同现统计在语义知识发展中的作用

• DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12894
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Cognitive Science
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Unger, Layla;Vales, Catarina;Fisher, Anna V.
• 通讯作者: Fisher, Anna V.

Lumping and Splitting: Developmental changes in the structure of children’s semantic networks

集中与分裂：儿童语义网络结构的发展变化

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104914
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Journal of experimental child psychology
• 影响因子: 2.6
• 作者: Vales, C.;Stevens, P.;Fisher, A.V.
• 通讯作者: Fisher, A.V.