Doctoral Dissertation Research: The mental representation and acquisition of the universal quantifiers

像“猫”这样的词会让不同的人想起不同的联想（例如，过敏反应和安慰的伴侣）。但与此同时，无论说英语的人给“猫”这个词配上什么意思，至少都必须足够相似，才能成功交流。这表明在某种程度上意义上是不变的，但在细节层面上我们对这个词的理解是共享的。如果说话者确实分享了一个词的意思的细节，那么他们是如何获得这些细节的问题就出现了。没有两个孩子在语言学习过程中有完全相同的经历，那么他们是如何对一个单词有共同的理解的呢？这个项目探讨了这两个问题——说话者分享单词含义的哪个方面，以及这个含义是如何获得的？-用于量化单词“each”和“every”。更好地理解说话者是如何表达和获取这些单词的，将提高我们对思维的逻辑基本原理的理解，以及孩子们在学习语言时使用他们输入的方式。这项研究汇集了各个领域的方法。视觉科学实验测试了参与者对集合和个体属性的记忆，以确定“每个”和“每”的含义是否暗示了集合的表征。语言语料库分析确定了对儿童讲话中存在的数据。来自发展心理学的技术被用来测试儿童是否实际上使用这些线索来学习“每个”和“每”之间的相关差异。该项目追求的假设是，虽然像“每个圆圈都是绿色的”这样的句子暗示了集合的表征（圆圈的集合），但最小差异的“每个圆圈都是绿色的”只暗示了个体及其属性的表征。该项目还包括向当地家庭和高中生开展有关相关问题（例如，更普遍地说，语言与思想之间的关系）的外展活动。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A word like “cat” calls to mind different associations for different individuals (e.g., allergic reactions versus comforting companion). But at the same time, whatever meaning English speakers have paired with the word “cat” must be at least similar enough to enable successful communication. This suggests some level of invariance in meaning, but leaves open the level of detail at which our understanding of the word is shared. If speakers do share fine-grained details about a word’s meaning, the question of how they acquired those details arises. No two children have the exact same experience in the course of language learning, so how would they come to have a common understanding of a word? This project explores both questions – what aspect of word meaning is shared across speakers and how is this meaning acquired? – for the quantificational words “each” and “every”. Gaining a better understanding of how speakers represent and acquire these words will improve our understanding of the logical primitives of thought and the ways in which children make use of their input when learning a language.The research brings together approaches from various fields. Vision science experiments test participants’ memory for set and individual properties to determine whether the meanings of “each” and “every” implicate representations of sets. A linguistic corpus analysis identifies the data present in speech to children. Techniques from developmental psychology are used to test whether children in fact use these cues in learning the relevant difference between “each” and “every”. The project pursues the hypothesis that while a sentence like “every circle is green” implicates representations of sets (the set of circles), the minimally different “each circle is green” implicates only representations of individuals and their properties. The project also involves conducting outreach about related issues (e.g., the relationship between language and thought more generally) to local families and high school students.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.