Focusing on the relation: fewer exemplars facilitate children's initial verb learning and extension

@article{citeulike:2894649, abstract = {Abstract One of the most prominent theories for why children struggle to learn verbs is that verb learning requires the abstraction of relations between an object and its action ( Gentner, 2003). Two hypotheses suggest how children extract relations to extend a novel verb: (1) seeing many different exemplars allows children to detect the invariant relation between actions in different contexts ( Gentner, 2003), and (2) repetition of fewer exemplars allows children to move beyond the entities involved to extract the relation ( Kersten \& Smith, 2002). We tested - and 3-year-olds’ ability to extend a novel verb after viewing the repetition of one novel actor compared to four different actors performing a novel action. Both ages were better at learning and extending a novel verb to a novel actor when shown only one actor rather than four different actors. These results indicate that during initial verb learning less information is more effective.}, author = {Maguire, Mandy J. and Pasek, Kathy H. and Golinkoff, Roberta M. and Brandone, Amanda C. }, citeulike-article-id = {2894649}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00707.x}, journal = {Developmental Science}, keywords = {noun-vs-verb, preschool-age, word-learning}, number = {4}, pages = {628--634}, posted-at = {2008-06-26 16:46:19}, priority = {2}, title = {Focusing on the relation: fewer exemplars facilitate children's initial verb learning and extension}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00707.x}, volume = {11}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2894649 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2894649 TI - Focusing on the relation: fewer exemplars facilitate children's initial verb learning and extension JF - Developmental Science VL - 11 IS - 4 SP - 628 EP - 634 N2 - Abstract One of the most prominent theories for why children struggle to learn verbs is that verb learning requires the abstraction of relations between an object and its action ( Gentner, 2003). Two hypotheses suggest how children extract relations to extend a novel verb: (1) seeing many different exemplars allows children to detect the invariant relation between actions in different contexts ( Gentner, 2003), and (2) repetition of fewer exemplars allows children to move beyond the entities involved to extract the relation ( Kersten & Smith, 2002). We tested - and 3-year-olds’ ability to extend a novel verb after viewing the repetition of one novel actor compared to four different actors performing a novel action. Both ages were better at learning and extending a novel verb to a novel actor when shown only one actor rather than four different actors. These results indicate that during initial verb learning less information is more effective. KW - noun-vs-verb KW - preschool-age KW - word-learning AU - Maguire, Mandy AU - Pasek, Kathy AU - Golinkoff, Roberta AU - Brandone, Amanda PY - 2008/// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00707.x ER -