In 2007 and 2008, Yu and Smith published their seminal studies on cross-situational word learning (CSWL) in adults and infants, showing that word-object-mappings can be acquired from distributed statistics despite in-the-moment uncertainty. Since then, the CSWL paradigm has been used extensively to better understand (statistical) word learning in different language learners and under different learning conditions. The goal of this review is to provide an entry-level overview of findings and themes that have emerged in 15 years of research on CSWL across three topic areas (mechanisms of CSWL, CSWL across different learner and task characteristics) and to highlight the questions that remain to be answered.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1175272 | DOI Listing |
J Exp Child Psychol
March 2025
Department of Psychology, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212, USA.
Learning verbs is an important part of learning one's native language. Prior studies have shown that children younger than 5 years can have difficulty in learning and extending new verbs. The current study extended these studies by showing children multiple events that can be compared during learning, including Japanese- and English-speaking children.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCognition
December 2024
Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt Scopus, Israel.
The word-frequency distributions children hear during language learning are highly skewed (Zipfian). Previous studies suggest that such skewed environments confer a learnability advantage in tasks that require the learner to discover the units that have to be learned, as in word-segmentation or cross-situational learning. This facilitative effect has been attributed to contextual facilitation from high frequency items in learning lower frequency items, and to better learning under the increased predictability (lower entropy) of skewed distributions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFQ J Exp Psychol (Hove)
September 2024
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
When learning new words, listeners must contend with multiple sources of ambiguity and variability. Research has revealed that learners can resolve referential ambiguity by tracking co-occurrence statistics between words and their referents across multiple exposures over time-a process termed cross-situational word learning (XSWL). However, the degree to which variability in the input, such as input from multiple speakers, and variability in learner experience, such as bilingual language experience, modulate XSWL remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn
June 2024
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University.
Cross-situational word learning (CSWL), the ability to resolve word-referent ambiguity across encounters, is a powerful mechanism found in infants, children, and adults. Yet, we know little about what predicts individual differences in CSWL, especially when learning different mapping structures, such as when referents have a single name (1:1 mapping structure) or two names (2:1 mapping structure). Here, we investigated how multilingual experience and working memory skills (visuo-spatial and phonological) contributed to CSWL of 1:1 and 2:1 structures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Psychol
April 2024
Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom.
Introduction: Recent research on word learning has found that adults can rapidly learn novel words by tracking cross-situational statistics, but learning is greatly influenced by the phonological properties of the words and by the native language of the speakers. Mandarin-native speakers could easily pick up novel words with Mandarin tones after a short exposure, but English-native speakers had specific difficulty with the tonal components. It is, however, unclear how much experience with Mandarin is needed to successfully use the tonal cue in word learning.
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