TY - JOUR
T1 - Integrating constraints for learning word–referent mappings
AU - Monaghan, Padraic
AU - Mattock, Karen
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Learning word–referent mappings is complex because the word and its referent tend to co-occur with multiple other words and potential referents. Such complexity has led to proposals for a host of constraints on learning, though how these constraints may interact has not yet been investigated in detail. In this paper, we investigated interactions between word co-occurrence constraints and cross-situational statistics in word learning. Analyses of child-directed speech revealed that when both object-referring and non-referring words occurred in the utterance, referring words were more likely to be preceded by a determiner than when the utterance contained only referring words. In a word learning study containing both referring and non-referring words, learning was facilitated when non-referring words contributed grammatical constraints analogous to determiners. The complexity of multi-word utterances provides an opportunity for co-occurrence constraints to contribute to word–referent mapping, and the learning mechanism is able to integrate these multiple sources of information.
AB - Learning word–referent mappings is complex because the word and its referent tend to co-occur with multiple other words and potential referents. Such complexity has led to proposals for a host of constraints on learning, though how these constraints may interact has not yet been investigated in detail. In this paper, we investigated interactions between word co-occurrence constraints and cross-situational statistics in word learning. Analyses of child-directed speech revealed that when both object-referring and non-referring words occurred in the utterance, referring words were more likely to be preceded by a determiner than when the utterance contained only referring words. In a word learning study containing both referring and non-referring words, learning was facilitated when non-referring words contributed grammatical constraints analogous to determiners. The complexity of multi-word utterances provides an opportunity for co-occurrence constraints to contribute to word–referent mapping, and the learning mechanism is able to integrate these multiple sources of information.
UR - http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/528144
U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.12.010
DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.12.010
M3 - Article
SN - 1873-7838
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 123
SP - 133
EP - 143
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
IS - 1
ER -