Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Monica Barbir, Mireille J. Babineau, Anne-Caroline Fievet, Anne Christophe
Summary: In the second year of life, infants rapidly acquire the lexicon of their native language. A key learning mechanism, syntactic bootstrapping, is used to facilitate vocabulary learning. This study found that 20-month-old infants can learn and apply a natural language syntactic-semantic link in less than 30 minutes, suggesting that emergent syntactic-semantic links can accelerate language learning. Infants employ a cognitive network of efficient learning strategies to self-supervise language development.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Jessica N. Steil, Claudia K. Friedrich, Ulrike Schild
Summary: Research shows that 6-month-old English-learning infants can associate labels with pictures of referents, but there are limitations in their noun comprehension, influenced by familiarity with the talker, target language, and word frequency differences. Parental rating of word exposure also affects infants' task performance.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Leah M. Schumacher, Jamy Ard, David B. Sarwer
Summary: In 2013, the American Medical Association (AMA) recognized obesity as a disease, hoping to improve public health and reduce weight stigma. However, significant challenges remain, including improving access to treatment, increasing prevention efforts and training, and reducing weight stigma's harm.
FRONTIERS IN PUBLIC HEALTH
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Erica M. Ellis, Arielle Borovsky, Jeffrey L. Elman, Julia L. Evans
Summary: This study investigated whether 18-month-olds' ability to use statistical regularities from fluent speech to identify words and map them to meaning predicts vocabulary size at 24-months and vocabulary change from 18 to 24 months. The results support the hypothesis that statistical word segmentation is an important aspect of word learning and vocabulary acquisition in toddlers.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Review
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Tanja C. Roembke, Matilde E. Simonetti, Iring Koch, Andrea M. Philipp
Summary: In 2007 and 2008, Yu and Smith published influential studies on cross-situational word learning, demonstrating the acquisition of word-object mappings through distributed statistics despite uncertainty. The CSWL paradigm has since been extensively utilized to study word learning in various language learners and learning conditions. This review aims to provide an overview of findings and themes emerged in 15 years of CSWL research, focusing on mechanisms, learner characteristics, and unanswered questions.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Ming Yean Sia, Emily Mather, Matthew W. Crocker, Nivedita Mani
Summary: Previous studies have shown that children's word learning is influenced by their existing knowledge. This study aimed to investigate how children associate similar-sounding words with objects of the same semantic category. The researchers found that while there was no evidence for systematicity in word form-meaning relations, children were able to learn and discriminate between similar-sounding labels and similar-looking objects.
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Theresa Matzinger, Nikolaus Ritt, W. Tecumseh Fitch
Summary: This study examined the impact of statistical cues and various prosodic cues on speech segmentation through artificial language learning experiments. The results indicated that pauses and final lengthening facilitated speech segmentation while final-syllable shortening hindered it. Surprisingly, pitch cues had little effect, suggesting that duration may play a more significant role in speech segmentation in this study context.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
Michael C. W. Yip
Summary: This study examined the cross-situational learning effects of minimal word pairs in Cantonese Chinese and found that Cantonese learners are able to learn and encode phonetic details, particularly the importance of tonal information, when learning word-referent associations.
PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW
(2023)
Article
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Thais Luca, Aline Paes, Gerson Zaverucha
Summary: Conventional machine learning assumes independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) data, while Statistical Relational Learning (SRL) combines statistical and probabilistic modeling to handle the relational structure in complex domains. Transfer learning is used when the i.i.d. assumption does not hold, aiming to transfer knowledge from a source domain to a new task in a target domain. This work proposes TransBoostler, an algorithm that uses pre-trained word embeddings and theory revision to map structures across different domains.
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Angeline Sin Mei Tsui, Lucy C. Erickson, Amritha Mallikarjunn, Erik D. Thiessen, Christopher T. Fennell
Summary: Infants are sensitive to syllable co-occurrence probabilities when segmenting words from fluent speech. Segmenting two overlapping languages is challenging, but infants can recruit phonetic cues to successfully segment words from one of the languages in a bilingual-like environment.
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Charlotte Rothwell, Gert Westermann, Calum Hartley
Summary: This study investigates the influence of interests on word learning in autism and neurotypical development. Results show that autistic children perform relatively well in semantic learning, especially with high-interest stimuli. Furthermore, 24-hour retention predicts the number of target word repetitions heard, suggesting a relationship between fast mapping input and retention.
JOURNAL OF AUTISM AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
Felix Hao Wang, Meili Luo, Suiping Wang
Summary: This study examined the computational limit of word extraction and storage from continuous syllable sequences, finding that at least two occurrences of a word are required for successful segmentation, with four exposures generating more robust learning results.
PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW
(2023)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Claudia Penaloza, Nadine Martin, Matti Laine, Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells
Summary: This article critically reviews the current literature on language learning ability in people with aphasia (PWA). The existing studies indicate that language learning can still function in some PWA, but there is large inter-individual variability in learning performance. Language processing, short-term memory, and lesion site are associated with learning ability. Preliminary evidence suggests a relationship between learning ability and treatment outcomes in this population.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Alayo Tripp, Naomi H. Feldman, William J. Idsardi
Summary: The study integrates social reasoning about groups of informants into a model of word learning, and demonstrates that beliefs about knowledgeability and group membership guide infant looking behavior in tasks of both word learning and recognition. The results suggest that social and linguistic development interact in non-trivial ways during early childhood, and social categorization findings could have significant implications for understanding linguistic development in real-world settings where talkers vary based on observable features correlated with social groupings.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Ana Paula Soares, Francisco-Javier Gutierrez-Dominguez, Helena M. Oliveira, Alexandrina Lages, Natalia Guerra, Ana Rita Pereira, David Tome, Marisa Lousada
Summary: A current issue in psycholinguistic research is whether children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties in picking up patterns in the sensory environment, and if explicit learning methods can compensate for these deficits. This study aimed to investigate the role of explicit learning mechanisms in children with DLD by using event-related potentials (ERPs) to measure their responses during an auditory statistical learning task. The results showed deficits in both implicit and explicit learning mechanisms in children with DLD, suggesting that interventions relying on explicit instructions may not effectively help them overcome their language difficulties.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Editorial Material
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Malte Schilling, Katharina J. Rohlfing, Paul Vogt, Chen Yu, Michael Spranger
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COGNITIVE AND DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS
(2020)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Julia R. Yurkovic, Grace Lisandrelli, Rebecca C. Shaffer, Kelli C. Dominick, Ernest V. Pedapati, Craig A. Erickson, Daniel P. Kennedy, Chen Yu
Summary: The study found no significant differences in the behavior of children with and without ASD aged 24 to 48 months during toy play with a parent, suggesting that children with ASD have a normal ability to explore toys. The importance of context in studying child behavior was highlighted through these findings.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Ophthalmology
Jeremy Borjon, Drew H. Abney, Chen Yu, Linda B. Smith
Summary: This study provides evidence that in older infants aged 12 to 24 months, active vision during object play is closely linked to head stabilization. This dynamic coordination of head and eye movements remains consistent during this developmental period, highlighting the importance of studying looking behavior in freely moving individuals to understand the role of body movement in visual attention development.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Paulo F. Carvalho, Chi-hsin Chen, Chen Yu
Summary: The study found that real-world category input tends to be organized around skewed distributions rather than normal or uniform distributions, resulting in broader generalization.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Educational
Chi-hsin Chen, Derek M. Houston, Chen Yu
Summary: This research, using head-mounted eye tracking, examines toddlers' information seeking behaviors and parents' information providing behaviors in real-time interactions. The study found that children and parents modify their behaviors when encountering novel objects with to-be-learned names, creating clearer signals that potentially facilitate word learning.
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Yayun Zhang, Daniel Yurovsky, Chen Yu
Summary: Through experiments using children's egocentric videos, research suggests that cross-situational learning, even in ambiguous situations, leads to gradual improvement in learners' performance, partly driven by the utilization of knowledge acquired from previous learning situations.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Chen Yu, Yayun Zhang, Lauren K. Slone, Linda B. Smith
Summary: Research shows that infants tend to gaze at a single referent when hearing object names, which could be either a wrong competitor or the intended target. This bimodal gaze distribution clarifies the understanding of the uncertainty problem and limits possible solutions.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Claire Monroy, Chi-Hsin Chen, Derek Houston, Chen Yu
Summary: Social interactions are crucial for early learning and cognitive development in infancy. Action prediction, the ability to anticipate observed actions, is important for coordinated interaction. Infants are able to anticipate their parents' actions during dynamic interactions, with the frequency of anticipation linked to joint attention and hand-eye coordination.
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Michael S. Gaffrey, Sarah Markert, Chen Yu
DEVELOPMENT AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
(2020)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Drew H. Abney, Sumarga H. Suanda, Linda B. Smith, Chen Yu
Article
Psychology, Educational
Maureen E. McQuillan, Linda B. Smith, Chen Yu, John E. Bates
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
Charles Maitha, Jesse C. Goode, Danielle P. Maulucci, Suha M. S. Lasassmeh, Chen Yu, Linda B. Smith, Jeremy I. Borjon
BEHAVIOR RESEARCH METHODS
(2020)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Chi-hsin Chen, Irina Castellanos, Chen Yu, Derek M. Houston
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE
(2020)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Lei Yuan, Tian Linger Xu, Chen Yu, Linda B. Smith
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
(2019)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Chen Yu, Sumarga H. Suanda, Linda B. Smith
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE
(2019)
