Learning words with multiple meanings: Input and processing in childhood

描述(由申请者提供)：NICHD的使命之一是支持人类发展的基础研究。语言、识字和双语项目支持对典型语言发展和语言相关过程背后的机制的研究。这里提出的这项研究将询问孩子们如何使用他们听到的演讲中的信息来学习一个单词有多个意思。这种同音异义词在对儿童和儿童的言语中很常见，但大多数单词学习理论都不包括对它们是如何学习的描述。这些研究将首先检查儿童在日常经历中听到的语音，并测量同音异义词的声学特性。先前的工作表明，表面上的同音异义词在感知上并不相同，而是它们在声学特性上有所不同，这取决于说话者的意图。这项研究还将考察儿童在使用同音异义词时是否会产生相同类型的差异。如果有这样的信息，孩子们会用它来处理和学习单词吗？为了验证这一点，这项拟议的研究将检验儿童和成年人是否在流利的语言中以及在孤立的单词实例中感知到这些差异。首先，成人和儿童将被要求对目标词被同音异义词取代的句子的自然度进行评分。这表明他们在处理句子时对同音异义词发音的差异很敏感。然后，成人和儿童将参与一项启动研究，该研究将测试同音异义词是否提高了对与其两个意思相关的单词的处理速度，还是只提高了与其使用意义相关的单词的处理速度。最后，这项研究将使用学龄前儿童的单词学习任务来确定儿童是否能够利用单词中的知觉差异来学习已知单词的新含义，这一壮举对幼儿来说是有问题的。这些研究通过提供对典型儿童发展过程的洞察，支持了NICHD的使命。同音异义词的学习也可能对早期识字有重要影响，因为在阅读领域也出现了将多种含义映射到一种形式上的需要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One aspect of the mission of the NICHD is to support basic research in human development. The Language, Literacy and Bilingualism program supports research into the mechanisms underlying typical language development and language related processes. The research proposed here will ask how children might use information available in the speech that they hear to learn that a word has more than one meaning. Such homonyms are common in speech to and by children and yet most theories of word learning do not include an account of how they are learned. These studies will begin by examining the speech that children hear in their everyday experience and measuring the acoustic properties of homonyms. Prior work indicates that apparent homonyms are not perceptually identical, but rather that they differ in their acoustic properties depending on which meaning is intended by the speaker. This research will also examine whether children produce the same kinds of distinctions in their own use of homonyms. If such information is available, do children use it to process and learn words? To test this, the proposed research will examine whether children and adults perceive these differences in fluent speech, as well as in isolated instances of words. First, adults and children will be asked to rate the naturalness of sentences that have had the target word replaced with a homonym. This will show that they are sensitive to differences in homonym pronunciation when they are processing sentences. Then, adults and children will participate in a priming study, which will test whether a homonym increases processing speed for words related to both of its meanings or just those related to the meaning in which it was used. Finally, this research will use a word learning task with preschool-aged children to determine whether children can use perceptual differences in words to learn a new meaning for a known word, a feat that is known to be problematic for young children. These studies support the mission of the NICHD by providing insight into processes of typical child development. The learning of homonyms may also have important implications for early literacy, as the need to map multiple meanings on to a single form also arises in the domain of reading.