Two major verb theories account for some of the difficulty children face when learning a new verb (Gleitman, 1990; Tomasello, 1992), but neither of these theories provides a mechanism for the discovery of which parts of an event are important to an individual verb's meaning and which are not (i.e., the """"""""packaging problem""""""""). The proposed studies examine whether a domain-general processing account from adult cognition could account for verb learning in development. Preliminary results already obtained suggest that children are making use of comparison when learning verbs that refer to actions (e.g., rake) or results (e.g., crush). Additional studies will examine the number of events that are needed for a child to form a comparison, and whether the number of events needed is related to verb type (action, result). A second series of studies will examine the role of linguistic cues in comparison by investigating whether children use language as a cue to whether two entities should or should not be compared. One study will examine whether children spontaneously compare events in nonlinguistic contexts as compared to contexts in which they hear new verbs. Three other studies will examine whether children make use of explicit contrast (i.e., This is meeking. This is not meeking. ) and/or implicit contrast (e.g., This is meeking. This is koobing.) during comparison. In a third series of studies, training studies will be used to examine how the use of the process of comparison for verb learning develops. Two studies will test whether experience with easier comparisons of events (i.e., comparisons with more similarity between the objects and components of the events) promotes comparisons of more abstract events (comparisons between objects and components of events that are very dissimilar). A separate study will examine whether experience with comparison in noun learning promotes the use of comparison during verb learning, the results of these studies are important to understanding whether aspects of verb learning that have not been previously accounted for could be explained by the use of a comparison process. Together these results, with the results from other studies, will lead to a coherent account of verb acquisition during the preschool years. ? ?
| Childers, Jane B; Paik, Jae H; Flores, Melissa et al. (2017) Does Variability Across Events Affect Verb Learning in English, Mandarin, and Korean? Cogn Sci 41 Suppl 4:808-830 |
| Childers, Jane B; Parrish, Rebecca; Olson, Christina V et al. (2016) Early Verb Learning: How Do Children Learn How to Compare Events? J Cogn Dev 17:41-66 |
| Childers, Jane B; Hirshkowitz, Amy; Benavides, Kristin (2014) Attention to Explicit and Implicit Contrast in Verb Learning. J Cogn Dev 15:213-237 |
| Childers, Jane B; Heard, M Elaine; Ring, Kolette et al. (2012) Children Use Different Cues to Guide Noun and Verb Extensions. Lang Learn Dev 8:233-254 |
| Childers, Jane B (2011) Attention to Multiple Events Helps 2 1/2-Year-Olds Extend New Verbs. First Lang 31: |
| Childers, Jane B; Paik, Jae H (2009) Korean- and English-speaking children use cross-situational information to learn novel predicate terms. J Child Lang 36:201-24 |
