Cross-situational word learning: Interaction with linguistic domains and underlying mechanisms

Abstract

Infants encounter words while having multiple objects in their view. The breadth of the learning space is the concern which several word learning theories aim to address. One proposed mechanism is cross situational word learning (CSWL) that states that word referent mapping takes place across multiple encounters. There are several advantages to CSWL as a method for supporting early word learning. It requires no innate constraints, presents a continuity with phonetic development using statistical regularities in the input, and can account for the importance of a co-occurring cue that indicates reference: eye gaze. CSWL presents an opportunity to link three areas in language acquisition: word learning, phonetic development, and social cues. There are different proposed approaches on how learners perform CSWL. The two accounts are the associative learning and the hypothesis testing, but the discussion is still ongoing as to which of the two better describes learning during CSWL experiments. This thesis investigated if learners could simultaneously track phonetic information while learning words through CSWL in two internet-based studies with adults and children using a pre-test post-test design. It also examined how the tracking of co-occurrence frequencies during a CSWL task was influenced by the difficulty of the learning situation as influenced by trial spacing and social cues. Study 1 found that adults showed sensitivity to the contrast after training but only in a referential-based task. The influence of task type on measuring discrimination abilities was further observed in Study 2 when adults were able to differentiate the contrast in an AX task but only when stimuli type and presentation are simplified. Children did not benefit from training despite being less susceptible to L1 influences. Study 3 found that social cues aided in locating the target faster although participants only began tracking a single referent later in the learning phase.