The role of novelty in word learning

利用一个人对物体名称的了解来推断一个新单词可能意味着别的东西的能力是一个潜在的强大的词汇习得工具。当一个单词学习者面对两个物体，一个是已知的，另一个是未知的，然后听到一个新的标签，为学习者提供了推断这个新单词指的是之前未知的物体的机会，这在上下文中特别有用。在这种情况下，年幼的婴儿何时以及如何理解一个新标签是一个无名物体的候选名称？之前的研究并没有为这些问题提供一个明确的答案：一些研究人员认为，这种单词学习策略在单词学习的一开始就可用，而另一些研究人员则认为，掌握这种策略需要很长时间——直到孩子三岁。研究人员还没有给出如何掌握这种能力的解释。拟议的研究旨在通过在严格控制的实验室条件下使用优先观察程序对婴儿进行测试来解决这两个问题。婴儿会坐在看护人的腿上，面前放着两张照片。一张图片将描绘一个婴儿熟悉的物体，这个物体的名字是婴儿知道的（通过父母的问卷来判断）。另一个对象将是新奇的。婴儿会通过扬声器听到指令，指示他们“看XXX”，其中XXX是一个新标签，如“wug”。在图像展示过程中，我们将使用精确的眼动追踪设备来监测婴儿对两幅图像的注视。我们想知道婴儿是否会对新物体表现出偏好，并在新标签和新物体之间形成联系。我们将通过给婴儿提供机会，让他们以这种方式学习两个新物体-标签的联系，然后给他们看新物体和其中一个新标签，并测量他们在听到新命名的物体的标签时是否表现出对新命名的物体的外观偏好。婴儿将在14个月，19个月和24个月时进行测试，以确定掌握这种学习新单词的策略的年龄。然后我们将用最年轻的年龄组来调查他们是如何掌握这项技能的。这个研究项目背后的中心思想是，婴儿利用物体和标签的相对新颖性来学习新的物体-标签联系。然而，新颖性在单词学习中可能有两种发挥作用的方式：首先，未知物体在已知物体面前的相对新颖性可能决定单词学习过程的结果。为了测试这种可能性，将两个在新奇程度上彼此不同的无名物体与一个已知物体一起呈现。我们预测婴儿会把新单词和完全陌生的物体联系起来。其次，物体本身的相对新颖性可能足以触发单词学习，因为婴儿更关注新奇的物体。如果他们在听到一个新单词的同时看到两个不知名的物体，那么婴儿可能会将更新奇的物体与新单词联系起来。一个积极的结果表明，新颖性在单词学习过程中发挥了重要作用。我们将使用优先寻找任务来测试新颖性在这两种情况下对单词学习的作用。

The ability to use one's knowledge of an object's name to infer that a novel word might mean something else is a potentially powerful tool for vocabulary acquisition. It is particularly useful in the context where a word learner is confronted with two objects, one name-known and the other nameless, and then hears a novel label, offering the learner the opportunity to infer that the novel word refers to the previously nameless object. When and how do young infants come to understand that a novel label is a candidate name for a nameless object in such situations? Previous research does not provide a clear answer to these questions: Some researchers argue that this word learning strategy is available at the very outset of word learning whereas others have argued that it takes a long time to master - well into the child's third year. Researchers have not provided an explanation of how this ability might be mastered. The proposed research aims to tackle both of these questions by testing infants under tightly controlled laboratory conditions using a preferential looking procedure. Infants will sit on their caregivers lap in front of two pictures. One picture will depict a familiar object whose name is known to the infant (as judged by a parental questionnaire). The other object will be novel. The infant will hear a command over a loudspeaker instructing them to 'Look at the XXX' where XXX is a novel label such as 'wug'. During the presentation of the images, we will monitor the infants fixations of the two pictures using a precise eye-tracking device. We want to know whether the infant will show a preference for the novel object and form an association between the novel label and the novel object. We will test this by providing the infant with opportunities to learn two novel object-label associations in this way and then presenting them with both novel objects and one of the novel labels and measuring whether they demonstrate a looking preference for the newly-named object when they hear its label. Infants will be tested at 14 months, 19 months and 24 months in order to identify the age at which this strategy for learning new word is mastered. We will then use the youngest age group to investigate how they master this skill. The central idea behind this research programme is that infants exploit the relative novelty of objects and labels to learn new object-label associations. However, there are two ways that novelty might play a role in word learning: Firstly, the relative novelty of nameless objects in the presence of a name-known object may determine the outcome of the word learning process. To test this possibility, two nameless objects which differ in novelty from each other will be presented with a name-known object. We predict that infants will associate the novel word with the completely novel object. Secondly, the relative novelty of objects themselves may be sufficient to trigger word learning because infants pay more attention to novel objects. If they hear a novel word at the same time as viewing two nameless objects, then infants may come to associate the more novel object with the novel word. A positive outcome would indicate an important role for novelty in the process of word learning. We will use the preferential looking task to test the role of novelty for word learning in both of these situations.