Do infants learn from isolated words? An ecological study

TY - JOUR

T1 - Do infants learn from isolated words?

T2 - An ecological study

AU - Keren-Portnoy, Tamar

AU - Vihman, Marilyn

AU - Lindop Fisher, Robin J.

N1 - © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details

PY - 2019/1/2

Y1 - 2019/1/2

N2 - Researchers disagree as to the importance for infant language learning of isolated words, which occur relatively rarely in input speech. Brent and Siskind (2001) showed that the first words infants produce are words their mothers used most frequently in isolation. Here we investigate the long-term effects of presentation mode on recognition memory for word forms. In two experiments we assess whether 12-month-old infants remember novel words presented in the home, over a three-week period, (i) in isolation or (ii) sentence-finally. When tested with word lists infants recognise words that had been presented in isolation, but not those that had been presented sentence-finally. They fail to recognise the trained words when tested with a segmentation task, regardless of presentation mode during the training. Our results indicate that the relatively small proportion of words produced in isolation in the input likely play a disproportionate role in the early period of language learning.

AB - Researchers disagree as to the importance for infant language learning of isolated words, which occur relatively rarely in input speech. Brent and Siskind (2001) showed that the first words infants produce are words their mothers used most frequently in isolation. Here we investigate the long-term effects of presentation mode on recognition memory for word forms. In two experiments we assess whether 12-month-old infants remember novel words presented in the home, over a three-week period, (i) in isolation or (ii) sentence-finally. When tested with word lists infants recognise words that had been presented in isolation, but not those that had been presented sentence-finally. They fail to recognise the trained words when tested with a segmentation task, regardless of presentation mode during the training. Our results indicate that the relatively small proportion of words produced in isolation in the input likely play a disproportionate role in the early period of language learning.

KW - infant word learning

KW - isolated words

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052287020&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/15475441.2018.1503542

DO - 10.1080/15475441.2018.1503542

M3 - Article

SN - 1547-5441

VL - 15

SP - 47

EP - 63

JO - Language Learning and Development

JF - Language Learning and Development

IS - 1

ER -