Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning

Ruxue Shao; Dedre Gentner

Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning

Ruxue Shao, Dedre Gentner

Psychology

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Young children can sometimes acquire new vocabulary words with only limited, indirect exposure (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). We propose that structural alignment processes lead to fluent detection of commonalities and differences that facilitate incidental word learning. To test this, we adapted the Carey and Bartlett paradigm, varying the alignability of the objects that 4-year-olds saw while hearing the novel word chromium. In Experiment 1, children in the High-Alignment condition were significantly better than those in the Low-Alignment condition at identifying chromium objects in a subsequent task. In Experiment 2, we ruled out an alternative account by equalizing the overall amount of information presented to the two groups. We also found that the advantage of high alignment persisted after two-to-four days. These results suggest that structural alignment is a mechanism by which children can learn word meanings even in incidental word learning situations.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016
Subtitle of host publication	Recognizing and Representing Events
Editors	Anna Papafragou, Daniel Grodner, Daniel Mirman, John C. Trueswell
Publisher	The Cognitive Science Society
Pages	1038-1043
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Electronic)	9780991196739
ISBN (Print)	978-1510832985
State	Published - 2016
Event	38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016 - Philadelphia, United States Duration: Aug 10 2016 → Aug 13 2016

Publication series

Name	Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016

Conference

Conference	38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016
Country/Territory	United States
City	Philadelphia
Period	8/10/16 → 8/13/16

Funding

We thank the children, families, and preschools that participated in the study, Emma Bulzoni and Katherine Cha for their help in conducting the experiments, and members of the Project on Children’s Thinking for their insightful suggestions. This work was supported by NSF SLC Grant SBE-0541957 awarded to the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC), and by ONR Grant N00014-13-1-0470 to Dedre Gentner.

Keywords

alignable differences
incidental word learning
structural alignment

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science Applications
Human-Computer Interaction
Cognitive Neuroscience

Cite this

Shao, R., & Gentner, D. (2016). Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning. In A. Papafragou, D. Grodner, D. Mirman, & J. C. Trueswell (Eds.), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016: Recognizing and Representing Events (pp. 1038-1043). (Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016). The Cognitive Science Society.

Shao, Ruxue ; Gentner, Dedre. / Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016: Recognizing and Representing Events. editor / Anna Papafragou ; Daniel Grodner ; Daniel Mirman ; John C. Trueswell. The Cognitive Science Society, 2016. pp. 1038-1043 (Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016).

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title = "Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning",

abstract = "Young children can sometimes acquire new vocabulary words with only limited, indirect exposure (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). We propose that structural alignment processes lead to fluent detection of commonalities and differences that facilitate incidental word learning. To test this, we adapted the Carey and Bartlett paradigm, varying the alignability of the objects that 4-year-olds saw while hearing the novel word chromium. In Experiment 1, children in the High-Alignment condition were significantly better than those in the Low-Alignment condition at identifying chromium objects in a subsequent task. In Experiment 2, we ruled out an alternative account by equalizing the overall amount of information presented to the two groups. We also found that the advantage of high alignment persisted after two-to-four days. These results suggest that structural alignment is a mechanism by which children can learn word meanings even in incidental word learning situations.",

keywords = "alignable differences, incidental word learning, structural alignment",

author = "Ruxue Shao and Dedre Gentner",

note = "Funding Information: We thank the children, families, and preschools that participated in the study, Emma Bulzoni and Katherine Cha for their help in conducting the experiments, and members of the Project on Children{\textquoteright}s Thinking for their insightful suggestions. This work was supported by NSF SLC Grant SBE-0541957 awarded to the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC), and by ONR Grant N00014-13-1-0470 to Dedre Gentner. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016 Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016. All rights reserved.; 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016 ; Conference date: 10-08-2016 Through 13-08-2016",

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Shao, R & Gentner, D 2016, Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning. in A Papafragou, D Grodner, D Mirman & JC Trueswell (eds), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016: Recognizing and Representing Events. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016, The Cognitive Science Society, pp. 1038-1043, 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016, Philadelphia, United States, 8/10/16.

Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning. / Shao, Ruxue; Gentner, Dedre.
Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016: Recognizing and Representing Events. ed. / Anna Papafragou; Daniel Grodner; Daniel Mirman; John C. Trueswell. The Cognitive Science Society, 2016. p. 1038-1043 (Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

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N1 - Funding Information: We thank the children, families, and preschools that participated in the study, Emma Bulzoni and Katherine Cha for their help in conducting the experiments, and members of the Project on Children’s Thinking for their insightful suggestions. This work was supported by NSF SLC Grant SBE-0541957 awarded to the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC), and by ONR Grant N00014-13-1-0470 to Dedre Gentner. Publisher Copyright: © 2016 Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016. All rights reserved.

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Young children can sometimes acquire new vocabulary words with only limited, indirect exposure (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). We propose that structural alignment processes lead to fluent detection of commonalities and differences that facilitate incidental word learning. To test this, we adapted the Carey and Bartlett paradigm, varying the alignability of the objects that 4-year-olds saw while hearing the novel word chromium. In Experiment 1, children in the High-Alignment condition were significantly better than those in the Low-Alignment condition at identifying chromium objects in a subsequent task. In Experiment 2, we ruled out an alternative account by equalizing the overall amount of information presented to the two groups. We also found that the advantage of high alignment persisted after two-to-four days. These results suggest that structural alignment is a mechanism by which children can learn word meanings even in incidental word learning situations.

AB - Young children can sometimes acquire new vocabulary words with only limited, indirect exposure (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). We propose that structural alignment processes lead to fluent detection of commonalities and differences that facilitate incidental word learning. To test this, we adapted the Carey and Bartlett paradigm, varying the alignability of the objects that 4-year-olds saw while hearing the novel word chromium. In Experiment 1, children in the High-Alignment condition were significantly better than those in the Low-Alignment condition at identifying chromium objects in a subsequent task. In Experiment 2, we ruled out an alternative account by equalizing the overall amount of information presented to the two groups. We also found that the advantage of high alignment persisted after two-to-four days. These results suggest that structural alignment is a mechanism by which children can learn word meanings even in incidental word learning situations.

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Shao R, Gentner D. Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning. In Papafragou A, Grodner D, Mirman D, Trueswell JC, editors, Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016: Recognizing and Representing Events. The Cognitive Science Society. 2016. p. 1038-1043. (Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016).

Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning

Abstract

Publication series

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Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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