Object Similarity Bootstraps Young Children to Action-Based Verb Extension

• Published in: Child development Vol. 82; no. 2; pp. 674 - 686
• Main Authors: Haryu, Etsuko, Imai, Mutsumi, Okada, Hiroyuki
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.03.2011; Wiley-Blackwell
• Subjects: Adjectives; Age Factors; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Concept Formation; EMPIRICAL ARTICLES; Empirical research; Experimentation; Extraction; Female; Generalization; Humans; Japanese; Japanese language; Language acquisition; Language instruction; Language Processing; Learning; Legal objections; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Nouns; Object; Preschool children; Psychology, Child; Referents; Relational similarity; Scaffolds; Semantics; Similarity; Studies; Syntax; Verbal Learning; Verbs; Words; Young Children
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01567.x

Young children often fail to generalize a novel verb based on sameness of action since they have difficulty focusing on the relational similarity across events while at the same time ignoring the objects that are involved. Study 1, with Japanese-speaking 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 28 in each group), found that similarity of objects involved in action events plays a scaffolding role in children's extraction of relational similarity across events when they extend a verb. Study 2, with 4-year-olds (N = 47), further showed that repeated experience of action-based verb extension supported by object similarity leads children to be better able to extend a novel verb based on sameness of action, even without support from object similarity.