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Does object naming aid 12-month-olds' formation of novel object categories?
The University of Toledo An experiment with 64 twelve-month-olds investigated the influence of object naming on their formation of novel object categories. Stimuli were constructed to represent 2 broad categories consisting of 3 narrow categories each. Objects representing the same narrow or broad category were presented with either a labelling or non-labelling phrase in a modified word extension procedure. Only infants in the narrow category-level condition who heard labelling phrases demonstrated categorization, and categorization performance in the narrow label condition was superior to that in the narrow no-label condition. Consistent with studies utilizing conventional objects, results indicate that object naming can facilitate infants' formation of novel object categories early in the process of lexical acquisition.
Key Words: Categorization infancy novel objects object naming word extension task
First Language, Vol. 26, No. 4,
347-361 (2006) |
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