What does it take to learn a word

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What does it take to learn a word?
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff University of
Delaware Winter Institute, August 2001
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A lecture in 4 parts...

• Whats a word anyway?
• What do you have to know about the world to
  learn
• words?
• What new methodologies have made it possible
  to
• study lexical acquisition, and language
  acquisition
• in general?
• How do babies find the words in the stream of
  speech?

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Whats a word? For example, dog or run or
hot?
Is it different than a cough or a burp?
What are the cognitive underpinnings for word
learning?
How can you find a word in the stream of speech?
How can you figure out its part of speech?
What do words map to in the world?
How can you learn a word?
How can you extend a word?
Are some words easier to learn than others
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What are the cognitive and social underpinnings
for word learning?
How can a person progress from a single-celled
organism to a walking, talking, thinking human
being within just a few short years? (Hennon,
Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, 2000) Understanding
this is the task of developmental psychology
understanding how language is learned and plays
a role is our task.
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The babies of the 21st century are different than
the babies that went before them..
As Mandler (1998) wrote, The result of the
ability to conceptualize is that the
post- Piagetian baby is no longer a purely
sensorimotor creature who can act, but not
thinkit is a baby who has formed concepts of
animate and inanimate things. It interprets
other people as agents. It understands event as
sequences in which agents act on objects, or in
which objects cause changes in other objects.
It can recall objects and events and think about
them. Finally, it is beginning to understand the
world in such a way that language, which
describes these kinds of understandings, can be
learned.
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So how come it took you so long to figure out
how brilliant I am?
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Because we lacked methodologies to allow us to
get into babies heads!

• Several methods have made all the difference in
• what we know about babies linguistic
  capabilities
• The sucking paradigm
• The headturn preference procedure
• The intermodal preferential looking
  paradigm
• The interactive intermodal preferential
  looking
• paradigm
• The conditioned headturn paradigm

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The High Amplitude Sucking Paradigm
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The Headturn Preference Procedure
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The Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm
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The Interactive Intermodal Preferential
Looking Paradigm
Wheres the ball?
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Do you see the ball? Look at the ball!
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The conditioned head turn paradigm
Used for the study of speech perception, e.g.,
Kuhl, Morgan.
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• Headphones on
• Mom E
• When sound
• changes, baby
• taught to turn
• head and sexy
• display lights up!

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What our new methodologies enable

• What can we do that we couldnt do before?
• Explore what babies know about language before
  they can
• say a single word
• Have the power to focus on the PROCESS of
  language
• learning.
• Gives us the power to imagine what
  language-learning must
• be like from the babys perspective and pursue
  our
• imaginings through research.

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Consider the task that faces the
language-learning child
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Da ist der Hund!
Nun kue sunak nueng tua!
Voici le chien!
There is the dog!
Hay un perro.
Ke da!
Ntsa ke ele!
Ngwa ye yi je.
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mapping between
Nun kue sunak nueng tua!
Hay un perro.
Ntsa ke ele!
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Yet, babies learn multiple languages with ease!
Da ist der Hund!
Nun kue sunak nueng tua!
Voici le chien!
There is the dog!
Ke da!
Hay un perro.
Ntsa ke ele!
Ngwa ye yi je.
How come??????
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Aside from biological preparation, babies spend
their first year understanding the world and the
beings that populate it.
What are non-linguistic concepts babies have to
work out to learn language? 1) Perceive
objects as cohesive bounded entities and
distinguish them from the actions they
participate in and their properties. 2)
Analyze events into their components -- who is
doing what to whom? 3) Distinguish animate and
inanimate objects. 4) Individuate and
enumerate objects and actions and form
categories. 5) Link sounds with sights. 6)
Use speakers social cues to aid word learning.
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1) Perceive objects as cohesive bounded
entities and distinguish them from the actions
they participate in and their properties.
How many dogs are there? Is the ball in
the foreground attached to the floor or a
separate entity? Are the clouds and sky
real or a picture?
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Babies know about objects from the start.
Spelke, Baillargeon Objects are cohesive,
bounded entities with substance that occupy space
in the world. Else why bother learning labels???
Here today, gone tomorrow! When? Piaget - object
permanence 24 months of age Baillargeon - 3
months (although being challenged)
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2) Analyze events into their components -- who
is doing what to whom?

• Golinkoff and colleagues - When can infants
  distinguish who is doing what to whom in an
  event?
• Age 14, 18 months Dependent variable
  Looking time
• Some changes in events change meaning, e.g.,
• If I push YOU, Im agent and youre recipient of
  action.
• If you then push ME, youre agent and I become
  recipient of the action.
• Some changes dont change meaning, e.g., changes
  in direction of action. Right to left push
  left to right push

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3) Distinguish animate and inanimate objects.
Golinkoff and colleagues - Chair pull study.
Dependent variable Facial expression, looks to
Mom, fear. Results Even at 16 months babies
often shocked!
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4) Individuate and enumerate objects and
actions and form categories.
Language labels categories. That is, if I name
this new object, Im not giving it a
proper name but naming others like it
too. When can babies form categories?
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3-month-olds can form a category of cat
versus bunny
Eimas, Quinn studies Show different cats
At test, show another cat and a bunny. Question
Will babies watch out-of-category animal longer
than in-category animal? YES!!!!

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5) Link arbitrary sounds with sights.
What is language but the hook-up of arbitrary
phonological sequences with referents? Why
arbitrary? Book could be called bloop
or krad -- no relationship between name and
referent. Gogate Bahrick studies 7-month-olds
, looking time dependent variable
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Taught arbitrary association between vowel
sounds and novel objects
TRAINING
ah ah ah
ee ee ee
TEST
ee ee ee
ah ah ah
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3 Conditions
SYNCHRONOUS ASYNCHRONOUS STILL Results? Associa
tion only learned in Synchronous condition!
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6) Use speakers social cues to aid word
learning.
Morales - Any relationship between babys ability
to follow eye Mothers gaze at 6 months and
subsequent word learning? Had Mom call babys
name and turn to the side or look behind
baby. Could baby follow Moms gaze?
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Babys ability to follow eye gaze at 6 months.
Was predictive of babys comprehension and
production vocabularies at 12-, 18-, and
24- months! Why? solicit
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Summary What do babies know about the world
before they say a single word?

• Tons!!
• Research here is in its infancy
• But babies know about objects
• actions
• events
• other beings as intentional and a source of
  information,
• and as distinct from inanimate objects.
• can form links between sounds and referents.
• All NECESSARY PRECURSORS TO WORD LEARNING

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Cognitive underpinnings in place. NEXT How
does baby find the words in the stream of speech?
No easy task! Words not strung together like
beads on a string! Years of speech perception
research has been unable to nail down the
invariants for the perception of
phonemes. Daunting task but babies who cant tie
their shoes can do it!
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Segmentation
Howdoesthebaby carveupthespeechstreamintounits?
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What cues exist for segmentation?
Sensitivity to native language stress patterns
help. By 9 months, babies prefer trochaic stress
(strong/weak as in magic). Sensitivity to
the frequency of co-occurring syllables helps.
By 8 months, babies are little statisticians.
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Additional cues to segmentation...

• Sensitivity to frequently occurring words
• By 4.5 months babies recognize own name, e.g.,
  Irving vs. Lauren

• By 6 months, recognize Mommy and
• Daddy and link to own correct parent.

Blah blah blah blah blah Irving blah.
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• Sensitivity to prosody helps.
• Infant-directed (ID) speech
• versus
• adult-directed (AD) speech.
• By 7 months, babies prefer appropriately
• segmented clauses only when heard in
• infant-directed speech.
• English-speaking adults segment Chinese and
• learn novel lexical items better when heard in
• ID speech.

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Baby has found the words...
But what do they mean?????? Quines gavagai
example Consider all the possibilities for
what gavagai might mean...
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Without probing word learning per se and how
babies figure out their meanings .
Weve discovered that babies are brilliant!
Analyzing the world, finding regularities, and
seeking patterns.. DO NOT THINK OF BABIES AS
VEGETABLES!!
Bye bye picture???
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