Do Backward Associations Have Anything to Say About Language?

In this letter, we argue against a recurring idea that early word learning in infants is related to the low‐level capacity for backward associations—a notion that suggests a cognitive gap with other animal species. Because backward associations entail the formation of bidirectional associations betw...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCognitive science Vol. 47; no. 4; pp. e13282 - n/a
Main Authors Chartier, Thomas F., Dautriche, Isabelle
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.04.2023
Wiley
Subjects
Backward associations
Chimpanzees
Cognitive ability
Cognitive science
Humans
Infants
Language
Language Acquisition
Language Development
Nonhuman animals
Verbal Learning
Word learning
Backward associations
Infants
Chimpanzees
Language
Word learning
Nonhuman animals
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Summary:In this letter, we argue against a recurring idea that early word learning in infants is related to the low‐level capacity for backward associations—a notion that suggests a cognitive gap with other animal species. Because backward associations entail the formation of bidirectional associations between sequentially perceived stimulus pairs, they seemingly mirror the label‐referent bidirectional mental relations underlying the lexicon of natural language. This appealing but spurious resemblance has led to various speculations on language acquisition, in particular regarding early word learning, which we deconstruct here.
Bibliography:This article is part of the “Progress & Puzzles of Cognitive Science” letter series.
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ObjectType-Editorial-2
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ISSN:0364-0213
1551-6709
1551-6709
DOI:10.1111/cogs.13282